[HN Gopher] Remote Code Execution in Marvel Rivals Game
___________________________________________________________________
Remote Code Execution in Marvel Rivals Game
Author : eugenekolo
Score : 155 points
Date : 2025-02-03 18:02 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shalzuth.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (shalzuth.com)
| bangaladore wrote:
| > the game runs with admin privileges for the sake of anti-cheat
|
| "sake of anti-cheat" should be taken lightly here. There is a
| reason why all the other sane anti-cheats have at least two
| applications, the anti cheat service which often runs as admin,
| and the game, which does not. Running the game as admin is quite
| frankly inexcusable.
|
| The service often does the network comms and communicates to a
| kernel-mode driver and/or to the application via IPC or similar.
| Having defined barriers of separation are good things.
|
| In any case, this POC doesn't have huge implications necessarily
| for most people, but maybe in SEA or China where LAN cafes are
| more prevalent, it could be a larger concern.
| shalzuth wrote:
| The one implication that I (the author) should highlight for
| the extra paranoid - this exploit extends to ISP's and cloud
| vendors that traffic is routed through. Anywhere in the trace
| route can MITM. It depends on how much you trust those parties.
| sim7c00 wrote:
| tried in some communities of gamedev to talk about security
| but i gave up. i think the main sentiment is not to care at
| all. so many games have or had trivial exploits. enabling
| mass cheating, harasment of other players (DOS) and more
| nefarious stuff. for people whwo think the mitm wont affect
| them... thats a silly stance. people hack home routers on
| massive scales. (another domain who doesnt seem to give shits
| about security)
|
| good writeup! thanks!
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Their's a really good argument for having a "gaming" os,
| Windows, and a serious OS , Linux on the same computer.
|
| If League of Legends needs super admin mode, it's no longer
| my computer. I'm sharing it with Tencent. I can't trust
| them ( specifically a disgruntled employee) to not install
| key loggers and other really nasty things.
| sim7c00 wrote:
| this is also a good argument. the anti cheat is
| impossible to implement in usermode, but you can hardly
| trust developerd with kernel mode drivers that trace all
| things.
|
| im not sure if a gaming os would help there.
|
| it would be helpful if OSes wouldnt allow things like
| malicious drivers but this is an extremely hard problem
| in light of people loading known vulnerable drivers and
| exploiting those...
|
| you could argue that a lot of drivers could live in ring
| 1 or 2 rather than ring0, but that no OS implements.
|
| working on an OS to try and think of solutions to this
| types of issues, but u know... if u can wait like 40
| years maybe it will be done (and likely it will be
| vulnerable in different ways :(( )
| DaSHacka wrote:
| This is essentially my Windows box. I use it for gaming,
| and RDP in from one of my other computers (all of which
| run GNU/Linux), when I need to run a Windows program away
| from the house.
|
| I treat it as though there's a random russian dude
| watching my every move through RDP keylogging all my
| inputs (and for how many one-off cracked programs have
| been installed on there over the years, it's not
| impossible).
|
| I can't imagine keeping my password manager and primary
| accounts logged-in on the same computer I have rootkits
| like Riot Anticheat and technical disasters like Marvel
| Rivals installed on.
| keyringlight wrote:
| I think there's a few angles on this.
|
| Firstly that a game developers main concern is getting
| their product functional, keeping that way, and that they
| can make money on it to make the whole endeavour
| worthwhile. There's already a lot of game releases where
| it comes across getting their idea working out the door
| is a lot higher up the list than the 'details' and
| attention to working great on the PC platform. Then that
| gamers will come in a wide range of skill/knowledge
| levels for their PCs, from those that treat them as
| glorified consoles to others that know every detail of
| their workstation.
|
| Dual booting adds more admin and complexity, and in a way
| it's admitting that the trust level in software is so low
| your OS can't sandbox things out, that stuff you're
| running is taking liberties or just enough effort to
| fulfill its task, and you're going to the extent of
| running a console in a separate partition but running it
| is mutually exclusive with the serious OS. I'd guess a
| lot of people who felt strong enough would just have
| 'serious OS' be another device, most likely a phone but
| alternatively laptop, which would seem to marginalize
| what they use the windows install for.
| prophesi wrote:
| I have a Windows partition that I haven't booted into for
| ages. Originally I would first try to run a game on
| Linux, and fallback to Windows if it has problems. Some
| live service AAA games are still impossible to run on
| Linux due to anticheat, but it's otherwise a pretty good
| time for Linux gaming in the era of the Steam Deck.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| I've removed the rebooting step and instead use a GPU
| pass-through VM
| gruez wrote:
| >If League of Legends needs super admin mode, it's no
| longer my computer. I'm sharing it with Tencent. I can't
| trust them ( specifically a disgruntled employee) to not
| install key loggers and other really nasty things.
|
| relevant: https://xkcd.com/1200/
|
| kernel/root/ring0 might sound super scary, but if there's
| any sort of code execution on linux/windows, practically
| speaking it's already game over.
| p_ing wrote:
| > Their's a really good argument for having a "gaming"
| os, Windows, and a serious OS , Linux on the same
| computer.
|
| This is a terrible idea if you think this will keep you
| secure. Windows provides direct access to update
| motherboard firmware and CPU microcode/management engine.
| sim7c00 wrote:
| hah yeah ,dont run insecure os nexto secure one :D. good
| point!
| p_ing wrote:
| Linux distros can also update firmware and microcode.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Is most malware literally going to embed itself in the
| BIOS and install itself on Linux ?
|
| Seems like an insanely difficult thing to do to target
| like .5% of users.
| p_ing wrote:
| Hot off the presses:
|
| https://github.com/google/security-
| research/security/advisor...
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Why stop at a separate OS? Why not use separate hardware
| just for gaming as well?
| sim7c00 wrote:
| custom hardware is nice, like a ps5 or something, but
| this is usually built up from somewhat known component. a
| lot of hardware is not too bad, but the software has the
| main issues. i dont see gaming companies develop custom
| security hardened hardware quickly due to extreme costs
| related in making very advanced and fast chips.
|
| ultimately a combination would be best, hardware tailored
| to be secure and allow secure software to be developed
| for it, but the same can be said for phones and pc's etc
| .
|
| most modern cpus have quite a lot of hardware security
| features which are often not ideally implemented or not
| used. they also offer features that can allow software to
| enhance security, bit that is also rare. for example you
| _could_ use certain extended cpu registers to allow for
| taint tracking etc, but this likely kills game
| performance, and is not even done for trivial
| applications despite being proven to mitigate entire
| classes of vulnerabilities. (its quite complicated to
| implement too as the hardware isnt taking into account
| such features for such purposes)
| daedrdev wrote:
| It's the endgame of cheats. If it's not supreme over all
| programs, you can cheat by chaining things when it isn't
| looking or before the anitcheat starts. By running a
| service from startup with maximal privilege, they can
| prevent cheats at the expense of running a service from
| startup as low at maximal privilege.
|
| Arguably they could have already gotten all sensitive
| user data without that privilege if their program was
| hacked
| hibikir wrote:
| The data breach Disney had last year is reported to be
| caused by downloading a malicious mod in a work computer,
| which then fetched the Slack credentials and downloaded
| everything available. Many a cryptocurrency wallet is
| emptied out with similar attack vectors.
|
| We might have better computer security than with Windows
| 95, but the level of isolation we need to have a
| semblance of security is very rare and it's very easy for
| people to slip.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| For a second I thought this was the Marvel game that got briefly
| banned along with TikTok, but that's marvel _Snap._
|
| It would have been a tiny bit funny if it had been the same
| company that was just briefly banned that was allowing a remote
| exploit.
| xnx wrote:
| Exactly my confusion. This would've made the TikTok ban feel a
| little more legitimate.
| empath75 wrote:
| To be honest, I would not be surprised if netease the same kind
| of attention as bytedance.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| The engineering culture behind AAA video games is rotten to the
| core with regards to security. Everyone thinks they're making
| Doom 3 and they're really making Windows 2000 Service Pack 1.
| Xunjin wrote:
| Great commentary, today the industry is focused on delivering
| free game with tons of cosmetics (which gives a ton of money)
| but forgetting about performance and security.
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| Your average networked game these days is probably a
| bazillion times more secure than one from 20 years ago. It
| was super common that there were cheat tools to crash all
| game clients in a match. It was super annoying, we can just
| be glad that it was usually not used for anything more
| nefarious.
| Xunjin wrote:
| Excellent point, how do you see today the industry,
| security wise?
| agoodusername63 wrote:
| Is it particularly surprising though?
|
| These are game developers. Not backend developers. Not web
| guys. Not remotely trained in infosec. They make games. Not
| security software. And for the longest time this was
| acceptable.
|
| I think for a GaaS in 2025 it's unacceptable to not have
| security minded engineers on staff for the backend stuff. Too
| much money is involved not to. Especially for studios very
| familiar with shipping online games.
|
| But I'm also kind of disappointed in how much we're forgetting
| that these people are not infosec nerds. Last year there was a
| cute fishing game made by a single dude messing around making
| things. It got popular and a kid found an RCE bug with the
| multiplayer. The dude got a TON of shit for the flaw, which
| feels deeply unfair. I don't expect my mom to configure a
| router correctly. I don't expect video game developers to
| understand defensive network programming without training.
|
| Maybe I'm just a little frustrated at the Internet largely
| unable to understand that defensive programming is something
| that isn't in a game devs trained skills. I would expect better
| of Netease however
| gruez wrote:
| >These are game developers. Not backend developers. Not web
| guys. Not remotely trained in infosec. They make games. Not
| security software.
|
| Why do game developers get a pass but not "backend
| developers" or "web guys"? Don't the latter only "make CRUD
| apps, not security software"?
| sbarre wrote:
| I think for web or "backend for network" people, you are
| _always_ deploying into a hostile environment (the
| Internet) and so you really should be at least aware of
| basic security measures. If you consider yourself a
| professional in that field, it 's table stakes.
|
| If you're a game dev, you were taught to write optimized
| code that runs locally on a computer.
|
| Not everything you do will run on the network, and
| networking/multiplayer might not be relevant every single
| time you ship a game. So it's less relevant (if still
| important)
| Sleaker wrote:
| This isn't really true, game devs have had to deal with
| client-server authenticity issues since the beginning of
| multiplayer gaming. There's a lot of lessons learned
| around and why there's whole sets of middleware designed
| to alleviate/lessen these issues. For as long as
| multiplayer games have been around this has been an
| issue.
|
| The impact ie: RCE vs just ruining the game experience
| may be different but the concepts are all the same-
| adversarial clients.
|
| The excuses you listed aren't any different for business
| apps.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| There are no triple A games today that doesn't run in a
| networked/internet environment, and your code lives on
| the hostile user; this seems like an even bigger risk
| than a web app.
| ryandrake wrote:
| There is nothing special about game development that
| justifies not knowing/caring about security. It's 2025.
| Everyone is deploying into a hostile environment (the
| world). Security is now a horizontal that cuts across all
| kinds of development: frontend, backend, web, mobile, PC,
| console. You can't just say "Oh, security is the job of a
| Security Developer. I am just a Xyz Developer."
| phoronixrly wrote:
| Hey, I feel there's some predisposition in infosec-minded
| people that insecure software must not exist regardless of
| its purpose or threat model. And also that people who can't
| write secure code must not write code...
| Hackbraten wrote:
| People who can't write secure code yet can learn how to
| write secure code.
| supermatt wrote:
| They generally make software that runs with (at least)
| unrestricted user level access on client devices, as opposed
| to backend guys who have no client access, and web guys whose
| code runs in a sandbox.
|
| If anything these devs should be more cautious than the
| others as the risk to the end user is extreme.
| devmor wrote:
| Why would there be a strong engineering culture behind AAA
| video games at all? Game developers are underpaid, overworked
| and constantly told they can be replaced at a moments notice.
|
| I wouldn't expect anything but code that "ships" out of them,
| and its understandable why.
| pyrolistical wrote:
| There needs to be at least 1 person to figure out why the
| game isn't hitting the performance target. That is real
| engineering
| DrillShopper wrote:
| With DLSS nobody bothers anymore. Just force the punters to
| buy an overpriced video card and then poor-shame them if
| they don't
| mrguyorama wrote:
| In modern gaming you just make every texture max size even
| though it only covers a tiny surface and will only fill 6
| pixels on a large monitor.
|
| Also, half of their shaders are broken on some
| configurations. Also they used a function call wrong so
| their game tries to render something a bunch of times
| instead of once.
|
| A huge portion of NVidia and AMD GPU drivers is literally
| hacks to make games actually run well. Both Nvidia and AMD
| patch game shaders at runtime to keep things from being
| unusable, and hack around broken behavior or wrong usage of
| APIs. It's exactly reminiscent of the situation Windows 95
| had when all sorts of popular programs _couldn 't even save
| interrupt flags properly because they straight up did not
| read the manual which had many sentences and code fragments
| demonstrating that what they wrote would not work_.
|
| Also, Titanfall 1 shipped with like 30gb of uncompressed
| audio. They did this to "reduce CPU load". In 2014.
| maccard wrote:
| Hi, I'm a game developer.
|
| > in modern gaming you just make every texture max size
| even though it only covers a tiny surface
|
| This completely false. Not even hyperbole, just plain
| false. We have budgets, we have tools. You need higher
| res textures for things that are smaller because you can
| get close to them. Is there waste? Sure, but no more so
| than in any other field. My local newspaper takes 15
| seconds to load on gigabit WiFi, and hangs on scroll.
| Reddit can't handle more than one tab open. Slack uses
| more ram than the game im developing sometimes. Even HN
| still falls flat on its face with a "moderately" popular
| link, and can't handle it if you perform too many
| operations.
|
| > A huge portion of NVidia and AMD GPU drivers is
| literally hacks to make games actually run well.
|
| This is because nvidia and AMD offer this as service but
| without access to your codebase. The days of them being
| required to function are long behind us.
|
| > Titanfall 1 shipped with like 30gb of uncompressed
| audio. They did this to "reduce CPU load". In 2014.
|
| As I've said many times, you might disagree but it was
| intentional. The Xbox one was an 8x1. 75GHz CPU, and some
| of that was reserved for system use
|
| All software is shit, and held together by duct tape. All
| industries have products that we can point at and call a
| disgrace - it's not games that are the problem.
| cubefox wrote:
| > The engineering culture behind AAA video games is rotten to
| the core with regards to security.
|
| But it is way ahead with regards to efficient hardware
| utilization!
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| And usually with an eye towards good user interface design.
| Not some white space heavy "clean" look where everything is
| hidden behind hamburger menus.
| creaturemachine wrote:
| I dunno, lately they're more interested in pointing you to
| the store page for skins and loot boxes.
| ykonstant wrote:
| True, but even the most vile loot box filled triple A
| slop game has better UI than the atrocities the OP refers
| to. At least there you can see some decent density of
| information and a hint of three-dimensionality, which is
| more than you can say about the "clean UI" desert
| landscape.
| ykonstant wrote:
| Preach. I often point towards games for examples of good
| balance of density, as well as elements of modern-looking
| skeuomorphism in UI.
|
| Of course I get all the usual garbage non-arguments in
| response from designers who don't want to take up a
| challenge and actually design, and instead fall back on a
| "tried and true" (except it is shit) fashion.
| Thaxll wrote:
| It's not more rotten that your regular backend shop. How many
| api issues / auth problems / s3 open bucket there are out there
| exactly?
| bobnamob wrote:
| s3 open bucket syndrome is basically cured at this point.
| (Aside from legacy buckets, which should all be exploited by
| now)
|
| The "yes I really want to do this" confirmations you need to
| go through when opening up a bucket these days are about 4
| deep...
|
| Authn/z issues are real though, they'll never be fixed
| bilekas wrote:
| I don't work in gaming, I know a few people who do, everyone of
| them does it for the love of the game. Certainly not for the
| job security or even the money. This idea that they're also to
| handle security is too much. It's not their fault, they're
| writing "art" not secure micro services for multi national
| companies.
|
| Publishers will pay to have 0level kernel ring on your system
| but not for software securing their game.
|
| > the game runs with admin privileges for the sake of anti-
| cheat
|
| Nobody higher than the devs thought "this might be risky?"
|
| Because can assure you, the devs felt it stupid and risky.
|
| Your "Everyone thinks their making doom 3". As I see this is
| not the developer fault.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| I've done IT support for a number of devs across multiple
| companies and they all expect local admin and admin access to
| everything. So no, I don't believe they feel it is risky. I
| believe they don't get it/don't care. It's just not their
| wheelhouse.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| No, it's because the average IT infrastructure is abysmal
| and getting things done without admin is it's own full-time
| job filing and following up on tickets and trying to plead
| your case for the ten thousandth time to the exalted
| security dieties that you just want to do your job gets
| old.
|
| Am i bitter? Nah
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Totally get it dude.
| bilekas wrote:
| This is a different case, if I don't have permission to
| talk to the graphics card, sound card, even ram, I'm a
| restricted engineer.
|
| > I believe they don't get it/don't care.
|
| You're right, anything that's not obstructive is never
| worried about.
|
| To me that says you're doing a good job giving permissions,
| it's also your job to manage those permissions, not the
| developers..
|
| > It's just not their wheelhouse.
|
| Your absolute bang on. And I can say from experience, it's
| good you guys are there.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Right and that's the thing, you don't need local admin
| for that. It can be done granularly or set up a dev env
| vm etc. It's a pain for everyone to be sure and some
| routes are easier than others.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The problem in big part stems from the business culture
| upstream. They're trying to produce a game, but what they're
| _really_ after is _e-sports money_. They design multiplayer to
| be about organized pro play, which brings in all the cheating
| problems of professional sports, so they end up subjecting
| _every player_ to e-sports-grade security like those anti-cheat
| systems, despite 99.9% of the player base _not caring about pro
| play in the first place_.
|
| This is the worst possible combination: players are forced to
| accept first-party invasive rootkits that are disruptive and
| ineffective, while cheaters still cheat.
|
| IMHO the only sensible solution is to separate out e-sports
| angle from the game itself. People who want to "go pro" would
| be free to subject themselves to anti-cheats and drinking
| verification cans and past some point might as well buy
| company-authorized computers to play on. Everyone else should
| just be allowed to play casually and enjoy the game without the
| anti-cheat nuisance (and a looming threat of false positive).
|
| With main incentive for serious cheating separated out, non-pro
| players would only have to worry about griefers. Those are a
| problem too, but they can be dealt with by simpler and less
| invasive measures than a kernel-level rootkit.
|
| As it is, AAA multiplayer games are basically like if FIFA was
| to micromanage Town Recreational Leagues and hold them to the
| World Cup standard, because cheating is a Big Deal so every kid
| needs to take regular blood tests before the match.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| Nobody wants to play multiplayer (only) games with cheaters.
| It is that simple.
|
| Esports money...? Micro transactions is the money. Publisher
| driven esports is advertising.
| S0y wrote:
| So what part of the game code exactly is able to download a
| random python script and run it?
| sanktanglia wrote:
| The patching process sends python byte code for hot fixes
| agentultra wrote:
| I was literally thinking about this the other day. There are a
| ton of games using kernel modules for anti-cheat and... just load
| and interpret data payloads. Certainly some of those payloads
| could manipulate the funny machines inside of a game executable
| if they're not careful about their parsing and validation.
|
| Nice PoC!
|
| _Update_ : yes, most game client processes don't run in the
| kernel. My b. I was just thinking that updates and content
| payloads might be an interesting vector for langsec.
| agentultra wrote:
| Also, if you see content distribution networks the way we've
| been looking into package managers as a vector distributing
| poisoned payloads... seems fruitful.
| Liquix wrote:
| Yes. For example world of warcraft's anticheat (warden),
| although it runs in userspace, has been exploited multiple
| times to gain RCE/server root after receiving malicious
| payloads from clients.
| mavhc wrote:
| Imagine if security software did that, but also ran on boot and
| took down a million critical machines
| sanktanglia wrote:
| Funny enough this engine is based off the same one they used in
| Diablo immortal which also has this issue
| wyldfire wrote:
| I'm surprised - isn't this game just a skin on Overwatch? So does
| Overwatch have an RCE?
| Nannooskeeska wrote:
| No, Marvel Rivals and Overwatch are not related in any way
| other than they're both the same genre of game.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Wow, I was so convinced that it was the case that I thought
| you were mistaken. They look remarkably similar. But yeah,
| just another game in that genre like you said.
| kibwen wrote:
| I bought a Steam Deck with the sole purpose of having a cheap,
| airgapped PC to run games on. Game devs just don't have the
| incentives or discipline to be trusted with security.
|
| Reminder that all three Dark Souls games allowed full RCE to any
| users connected to the internet: https://flashpoint.io/blog/rce-
| vulnerability-dark-souls/
| Etheryte wrote:
| I wish Steam offered a console format of the deck, essentially
| the same thing, but with better specs, HDMI out and bluetooth
| for controllers. Would be a massive hit I wager.
| jamie_ca wrote:
| They tried some years back
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_(computer) but it
| didn't really hit big. That said recent updates to SteamOS
| and agreements around logo/branding use hint that we're
| likely to see a few other options in the coming year or two
| (alongside some 3rd-party handhelds running SteamOS).
| kibwen wrote:
| This is what I do, I rarely use it in handheld mode (but I do
| appreciate the ability to). Valve sells a dock with HDMI out
| (along with ethernet, USB, etc), and I can confirm that it
| works wirelessly with Xbox controllers.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I thought SteamOS was just some layers on top of Arch.
|
| To not go full Dropbox, but I think if someone wants a Linux
| PC to run games, it is within the realm for a home PC builder
| to accomplish. It would otherwise be a tough market to sell,
| "Buy this gamer PC, less great specs than you would likely
| pick for yourself and not compatible with the most popular
| games that have onerous anti-cheat root kits".
| qskousen wrote:
| This is something they are (probably) working towards with
| SteamOS, being able to run it on your own hardware with deck-
| level hardware support. See
| https://www.pcguide.com/news/valve-could-be-thinking-
| about-r...
| oxygen_crisis wrote:
| The deck already has bluetooth for controllers and HDMI out
| if you get a standard USB3/HDMI dongle (or their expensive
| dock).
|
| Essentially all you're asking for them to add is better
| specs.
|
| In December their revised branding guidelines added a
| "Powered by SteamOS" badge so presumably 3rd-party boxes with
| various specs in set-top form factors will be coming before
| too long:
|
| > The Powered by SteamOS logo indicates that a hardware
| device will run the SteamOS and boot into SteamOS upon
| powering on the device. Partners / manufacturers will ship
| hardware with a Steam image in the form provided by and/or
| developed in close collaboration with Valve.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Better specs would also be interesting, because Steam's
| current "Steam Deck Verified" does check if games run well
| on the Steam Deck's hardware. There's another check for
| text size on the smaller 7" screen too.
| bilekas wrote:
| > Game developers continue to amaze me at their lack of security
| awareness.
|
| Because game developers are SUPPOSED to be aware of these things?
|
| > It's very hard for security researchers to report bugs to most
| game dev companies. On top of that, most do not have bug bounty
| programs
|
| Yet the OP blames the GAME developers...
|
| They already have harder jobs than the majority of us, picking on
| them for not knowing skills outside of their area is just being
| mean and OP is targeting frustration at the wrong group.
| munchler wrote:
| YES. Did you read the part where the game devs use RCE with
| admin privileges to run patches? Any developer who does that
| should be aware of the security risks they're taking.
| bilekas wrote:
| Any developer yes, but I personally put game developers into
| a different category, they're making games and trying to find
| shortcuts to meet strange management requirements. They don't
| know the security side.. I'm admitting there should be some
| guard before code review is approved from a real security
| engineer
|
| > Any developer who does that should be aware of the security
| risks they're taking.
|
| Developer yeah, someone who's focused on recreating the game
| probably not
| munchler wrote:
| Trying to meet strange management requirements is normal
| for just about any professional developer. I don't
| understand why you think game developers deserve a special
| exemption.
| kevingadd wrote:
| If you sell software to millions of people that runs with
| access to sensitive data you have an obligation to do a good
| job, sorry. If you don't like that, make it MIT licensed on an
| open source site instead of $70 on Steam.
| bilekas wrote:
| The developers don't have that obligation, the publishers do
| though.. They are the last in the chain here.. Those gaming
| agencies have a lot of beuracracy filtered in gaming senses.
|
| I'll say this, every single game dev I've ever met, has no
| clue how to navigate bureaucracy. I'm not saying it's a type,
| but it's not random, they have other things to worry about.
| lockemx wrote:
| Interestingly, the game doesn't run as admin for any good reason.
| The first thing I did was only let the launcher and game run as
| the user with RunAsInvoker. The anticheat alone is allowed
| RunAsAdmin. At the same time, I don't trust any anticheat. It's
| probably worse than useless, but it is what it is. I thought
| Microsoft would clean this up after the Crowdstrike incident for
| all kernel-level code, but I guess there's no incentive for them
| to only let game companies request runtime analysis / reports
| rather than run code. As for the anti-cheat industry, they should
| focus on patterns of user behavior to help game companies
| moderate the players as much as neccesary.
| zwily wrote:
| I have a related question for you... my kids like Marvel
| Rivals, but I also use Microsoft family tools to limit their
| screen time so they don't have Admin accounts. However, the
| Marvel Rivals anti-cheat makes me enter my password every time
| they launch. Is there any way for me to create a shortcut or
| something so Rivals will launch without my password?
|
| I'm not a Windows guy and trying to figure this out has been
| extremely frustrating...
| voxic11 wrote:
| You can make a on-demand scheduled task that runs Marvel
| Rivals as admin then create a shortcut that invokes the task.
|
| Full instructions https://chatgpt.com/share/67a13960-c1b4-800
| 2-a699-7b547c759c...
| sandyarmstrong wrote:
| I just had to fix this for my kid over the weekend. https://s
| teamcommunity.com/app/2767030/discussions/0/5962604... was
| very helpful:
|
| You can also skip the UAC prompt without editing the
| registry, by adding the following to the game's launch
| options in Steam:
|
| cmd /min /C "set __COMPAT_LAYER=RUNASINVOKER && start ""
| %command%"
| EA-3167 wrote:
| If anticheat worked then it would be an interesting, perhaps
| tolerable tradeoff for some. The reality however is that games
| are absolutely packed with cheaters, there's an international
| industry in creating cheats for popular games, so what you get
| is an arms race that as usual only punishes honest users. It's
| like DRM, pirates don't seem to have much of a problem, but it
| sure can hurt the rest of us.
|
| Unfortunately both the executives who buy into these things,
| and the average consumer, are simply too... simple, to
| understand or appreciate that.
| kevingadd wrote:
| I tried to get Microsoft to stop signing kernel mode anti-cheat
| drivers with no result. Even when a vulnerable driver is found
| the vendor is given way too much time to deploy a fix while the
| vulnerable build is out in the wild with a valid signature. The
| signature should be revoked as soon as an exploit is found,
| it's an anti-cheat driver for video games not essential
| business/government infrastructure.
| zxilly wrote:
| Looks like a typical mitm attack, which confuses me a bit, don't
| the developers use something like tls or dtls to protect their
| communications? The most recent game I analysed was helldivers 2,
| which uses dtls. i would have thought that would be fairly common
| knowledge.
| plagiarist wrote:
| I like the other rant at the bottom. But why would game
| developers care about security when their customers don't care?
| The customers are fine running anticheat with admin privileges
| like in this RCE he just found.
| kevingadd wrote:
| I personally encountered a game anti-cheat driver in the wild
| (Anti-Cheat Expert) that caused BSODs and data loss. I later
| discovered there were known exploits in it and the signature
| still hadn't been revoked. I managed to get the developers of
| the game I was playing to reconfigure it by kicking up a fuss
| on the subreddit, at least.
| foco_tubi wrote:
| Interesting that the PS5 has been implicated - does this mean
| that there is an opportunity to jailbreak firmware again?
| tart-lemonade wrote:
| It downloads and executes a Python script to _update the store
| page?_ Log4j /log4shell, anyone?
|
| Just build a JSON API! It's not that hard! You don't need to RCE
| your game every time it launches just for microtransactions.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > This also opens the door up to an entrypoint on PS5.
|
| Does he mean that this is potentially how one could install
| custom firmware on their console?
|
| Curious because I remember reading somewhat recently that console
| vendors have locked their consoles down well enough so as to
| avoid any vulnerabilities which could be exploited to install
| custom firmware. It would be amusing if that was invalidated by
| game dev security and I start hearing about ways to install some
| modded firmware, which include a step of "install one of these
| games".
|
| IIRC, the web browser on 3DS systems was exploited to install
| custom firmware rather than a game so it was rather easily
| patched with a system update (and, indeed, it actually was
| patched). I wonder if we'll be seeing Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft
| start to insist on certain security standards as a result of
| _games_ being exploited to install custom firmware on the devices
| they sell, presuming the answer to my first question is
| affirmative.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-02-03 23:01 UTC)