Grand Theft Auto (GTA) Online players were upset following a major bug exploited by a threat actor that resulted in them losing game progress and in-game money and being banned from joining game servers.
According to reports, the bug was a “remote code execution” vulnerability exploited by a GTA V cheat developer, wherein the bad actor modified the players’ account attributes, including emptying their in-game money balance, corrupting user accounts, and banning players from gaming.
Anyone online playing GTA, even in different multiplayer servers, could be a victim of the bug exploit.
The vulnerability exploit can target any online player, even on different multiplayer servers or lobbies. CVE, a program that identifies, defines, and catalogues discovered vulnerabilities in the cyber landscape, tracked the GTA Online bug under CVE-2023-24059.
On the other hand, last January 21, the said GTA V cheat developer removed the abusive features of the bug exploit and apologised for the issues it has caused all affected GTA Online players. The actor admitted that the reversal could be too late, as numerous players have already been impacted.
Rockstar Games, a leading video game publisher that developed GTA V, had received floods of reports from users that experienced gaming problems due to the bug exploit. Nonetheless, the game publishing firm has yet to release any statement about the issue.
Security experts are also concerned that the partial remote code execution flaw could extend to the victims’ computer security, aside from only affecting their GTA Online game. Users are advised not to run the game if their computers do not have an active firewall or strong anti-virus software.
A custom GTA V firewall tool developer named Speyedr warned that there had been potential threats from hackers aiming to infiltrate computers by exploiting bugs from the game. The custom GTA V firewall tool, ‘Guardian,’ could protect players from these threats as long as they have configured it correctly.
The tool developer and security experts also recommend not launching the game on PCs until the vulnerability has been fixed. Meanwhile, Rockstar Games has yet to comment.
