Reports indicate that a bug in Grand Theft Auto V Online is putting PC gamers’ gameplay, and potentially even hardware, at risk.
The bug supposedly allows cheaters and modders to hijack, Edit, or damage the account information of PC players. Some players report having their entire game and account data wiped, while others have reported having their in-game currency stolen. Worse yet, the bug allegedly allows “partial remote code execution,” which could allow malicious users to edit files on players’ PCs. While GTA publisher Rockstar Games has yet to officially comment on the situation, many commentators have encouraged PC gamers please refrain from playing until we all have a better idea of what’s going on.
News of the issues began appearing on various internet sites over the weekend, with one particular watcher the Twitter account. complexion2 (which is regularly updated on Rockstar news), posting extensively about the exploit. Complaints also erupted on Rockstar’s official support forums.
“Gta online on PC is currently unplayable due to severe vulnerabilities, this needs to be fixed,” one user posted.
“Scared to play online,” another commented. “Please fix this rockstar, I really like this game.”
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Another merely said: “GET YOUR *** TOGETHER ROCKSTAR!”
Meanwhile, a subreddit devoted to the game has called for players to avoid the game until further notice. “As we’ve learned it is not safe to play the game on PC right now due to a very dangerous exploit that has just come to light,” reads a pinned post Shared on the subreddit. “We need to report this en masse to Rockstar so they can’t ignore it.”
On the same subreddit, users expressed frustration that Rockstar has yet to address, or even confirm, the security issue: “Absolutely the most inexcusable element of this. R* is more concerned with the bad press than telling people the extent to which their game has been breached and what danger it poses to their personal information.” commented one user “Really makes me think the worst, if they can’t even come out and say X is safe for now.”
complexion2who has been monitoring the situation, has written that “Rockstar is aware [of the problem] and I have been logging any affected accounts before the first mod menu started abusing the new vulnerabilities.” However, the company itself has not yet published an official statement on the subject.
BleepingComputer has reported that the vulnerability associated with the exploit has already accumulated an official CVE designation and is being tracked as CVE-2023-24059. The CVE describes the bug as allowing a hacker to “achieve remote partial code execution or modify files on a PC.” However, not many details are available on how the exploit is supposed to work.
Gizmodo has reached out to Rockstar for comment on the apparent security issues, but has not received a response. We will update this story if they respond.
yes the bug it does Turning out to be real would be far from the first security issue Rockstar has had of late. Last year, a cybercriminal managed to compromise the gaming giant’s systems and proceeded to steal (and then leak) the source code to the next GTA 6.
