A Marvel Rivals player has uncovered 'one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities a game can have' that'll let cheaters take over your PC and find your passwords - Related to grim, firaxis, uncovered, dangerous, player

A Marvel Rivals player has uncovered 'one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities a game can have' that'll let cheaters take over your PC and find your passwords

Marvel Rivals has overcome a couple of difficulties since it was released at the end of last year. This mostly involved improving performance or sorting out technical issues with the breakable environment or individual hero abilities, but now it looks like its security will be the next hurdle the devs need to overcome.

A YouTuber who goes by Shalzuth revealed that he's found a vulnerability in Marvel Rivals that hackers can use as a doorway to take over your PC. The video details the issue without giving any technical details, which could then be used to harm other players. "Please note, this isn't about fearmongering," Shalzuth says. "It's about understanding how this class of vulnerability works and why it's so significant for game developers to design hotfixes and patch updates in a secure and safe way."

It all apparently started when Shalzuth was playing Marvel Rivals, and he "noticed something odd about how the game updates the cosmetics store" because it does so without a client patch or upgrade. "So I dug a little deeper and realised there's a flaw in how this patch system works," Shalzuth says. "Originally, it was designed so the game developers could run code to upgrade parts of the game on your device, but there's a flaw that someone can use to execute code on your device. This is what the security industry calls Remote Code Execution (RCE)."

I Found a Game Exploit That Lets Hackers Take Over Your PC - YouTube Watch On.

Hackers use RCE vulnerabilities to execute arbitrary code on a remote device, which they can then use to gain full unauthorized control over things like PCs and laptops. These attacks can then be used to install data-stealing malware, extract essential data like passwords, disrupt applications, or install ransomware. All of which can be done without the owner's knowledge.

"To show how serious this can be, I created a test environment," Shalzuth says. This setup includes two devices I own: my gaming desktop and my travel laptop. They're both connected to the same network. I'm recording this video and running the exploit from my desktop, and I'm remoting into my laptop to include it in the video."

The demo of how the RCE tool worked saw Shalzuth load up Marvel Rivals, but a problem was present before the shaders were even compiled. "This is also hilarious," Shalzuth says. "The game itself also requires admin privileges for the sake of their anticheat, so the game has full privileges, which is great. So I'm going to go ahead and approve that and sign away my computer to the game." Not a great start.

After this, as the game was launching, Shalzuth fired up the exploit tool, which began searching for packets with admin privileges. As soon as Shalzuth pressed start, the exploit tool found decryption keys, which were used to inject a Python script that would then trigger the RCE exploit, giving the desktop full control over the laptop: "At this point, my laptop is owned, it's sending all my passwords to some malicious user." All of this is possible just because the game apparently doesn't verify whether it's connected to the real game server, so it can easily be tricked.

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It's very hard for security researchers to research bugs to most game dev companies. Shalzuth.

Luckily, this exploit has its limitations right now. A hacker would need to be on the same Wi-Fi as you in order to see packets on your network. So you're in the most danger if you start up Marvel Rivals while sitting at a coffee shop, are on a university or college campus, or have a simple Wi-Fi password that someone local to you could easily figure out. Theoretically, internet service providers' employees who have access to packets going over your network could also make use of this exploit. But just because the odds of players being affected by this exploit are low, it doesn't make it any less unnerving.

Shalzuth goes on to discuss in a blog post just how frustrating it is to keep encountering poor security protections in substantial games. "In the past year, I've found at least five critical bugs in VERY POPULAR games that can have a negative impact on the entire player base. Three of them still exist because either the game dev isn't reachable or the game dev just straight-up doesn't care.

"It's very hard for security researchers to study bugs to most game dev companies. On top of that, most do not have bug bounty programs. It is a huge shame, and it encourages people looking into video game security not to study vulnerabilities and only create hacks and bots because that's where the money is. Thank you to those game devs that do have successful bug bounty programs."

It's unclear whether NetEase is taking this claim seriously. While commenters claim that they have raised this issue with the developers, there's no concrete evidence that the developers are aware of this problem yet. I've reached out to NetEase for a comment, and while I haven't heard anything yet, I'll enhancement this article once I do.

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Unique items in Path of Exile 2 need to take more inspiration from Grim Dawn's diarrhea pants

We all have our vices, and mine is a loot pile. There are few insights of dopamine more potent than dealing a final blow to a fortuitous skeleton and being rewarded with a multi-colored geyser of greatswords, quivers, amulets, and greaves. But while Path of Exile 2 has been supplying me with a steady drip of loot-triggered neurochemicals, all those drops have fallen just short of delight for one main reason:

Unlike most of the randomized loot in Path of Exile 2, unique items are a rare class of equipment that are fully authored by Grinding Gear Games. They've got their own name, their own art, and their own preset modifiers—some of which can't be found anywhere else. Like equivalent item classes in other ARPGs, uniques are PoE 2's way of providing the classic medieval fantasy of finding a legendary sword or magical helmet worthy of its own name and mythology.

That's the idea, at least. So far, however, most of PoE 2's uniques just make some numbers go up by making others go down. And when they don't, they feel less like build definers and more like build multipliers.

Looking through PoE 2's lists of uniques, I don't feel like I'm looking through a gallery of Excaliburs and Durendals. Instead, it feels like a mathematician's idea of compelling trade-offs: Quill Rain makes you shoot arrows faster, but your arrows don't hit as hard. Husk of Dreams gives you a chance to not consume flask charges, but the flask charges you do use are increased. Those choices might make interesting numerical problems for theorycrafters to ponder, but they don't exactly leave me enchanted. Nobody's writing any adventure novels about a guy who can drink potions a bit more than usual.

With simpler uniques the prevailing philosophy seems to be "Item, but More," with any number of Brynhand's Marks and Taryn's Shivers that just offer improved-than-normal functionality for characters with aligned build mechanics. They're missing the creativity that should set uniques apart.

There are exceptions of course—uniques like Choir of the Storm, which makes critical hits call lightning bolts down on enemies, or Quecholli, which detonates enemies killed with critical hits to deal damage in a radius. But for the most part, PoE 2's current slate of uniques don't offer a distinct enough gameplay experience to feel like gaining possession of a storied artifact. That's crucial for the power fantasy of an action RPG as well as its replayability—I want to start dreaming up new builds when I pick up a unique that does something no other item in my inventory can.

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While I broadly prefer PoE 2's progression and buildcrafting, Diablo 4 knows how to make a unique hit. D4's uniques are more than beefy stat bonuses—they're often completely new class fantasies, wrapped up in a single item. Grasp of Shadow can turn rogues into walking armies of shadow clones. Greatstaff of the Crone gives werewolf druids an entirely new form of lightning-based lycanthropy.

The best ARPG uniques offer another layer of player expression. I love to build a character around a specific item's gimmick—not because it's the most effective option, but because it constructs a different identity to inhabit during play. Say what you will about Grim Dawn's unique poopy pants, you're going to feel like you're playing a character that's wholly your own if that's the basis of your build. I'm not necessarily saying PoE 2 needs more diarrhea, but there's a reason "walk a mile in another man's shoes" is a cliche while "walk a mile in another man's diarrhea pants" is an entirely new sentence. Uniques grab your attention and imagination when they get weird with it! That's a good thing (soiled trousers notwithstanding)!

When an item marked by a pillar of light and a name like Foxshade tumbles out of an enemy, I want to feel awed. My build might not work with a unique, but I want to feel tempted to make it work. In PoE 2, though, my reaction is usually "Huh, alright," and then I toss the item in my stash where it's promptly forgotten.

Still, I have hope. Grinding Gear Games designed a panoply of compelling uniques in the first Path of Exile that felt worthy of the designation: weapons like The Poet's Pen, which triggers socketed spells as you attack, or the Varunastra, a one-handed weapon that counts as all weapon types at once. GGG's proven it has the skillset for packaging a strong fantasy into an exciting item drop. I'd just like it to hit PoE 2's early access sooner than later.

is a journalist with more than 17 years of experience covering video games, technology, movies, TV, and entertainment.

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As Civilization 7 languishes with a 'mixed' rating on Steam, Firaxis says improving the game's wildly unpopular UI is 'our top priority'

Civilization 7 doesn't fully launch until next Tuesday, February 11, but it's playable now for people who sprung for the Founders Edition, and so far the response isn't what Firaxis or 2K Games had to be hoping for. There's a range of complaints, as there always is, but most widespread is criticism of the UI, which has grown to the point that developers have now mentioned they're "looking into" it.

As we noted earlier today, Civ 7 is off to a rocky start, with a "mixed" rating on Steam: Currently, only 44% of the game's user reviews are positive, a far cry from what you'd expect from one of the most storied and reliable series in videogame history. PC Gamer's Tyler Wilde warned last week that the game would likely be "contentious" among critics and fans, mainly because of significant changes made to the game's ages system, which is now essentially a series of "soft resets" between the Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern ages that requires players to choose a new civilization for each new age, and the streamlining of some game systems.

But it's the interface that seems to be the big sticking point, at least at this early stage of things. There are plenty of complaints in the Steam user reviews but the UI is the most common thread, and even some positive reviews cite the interface as an issue: One positive review calls Civilization 7 "an amazing game," but warns that the "UI is so bad I can't sleep anymore." Another, also positive, describes the UI as "abysmal," and a third—still a positive verdict overall, remember—calls it "absolute trash."

It's not often that you see both positive and negative reviews complaining about the same thing, and it's reached the point where Firaxis has taken notice. "We are aware of and looking into feedback on the game's UI," the studio stated in a developer response to at least three Steam user reviews. "We're continuing to make improvements to Civilization 7, and appreciate you taking the time to drop your feedback."

It's a stock response, yes, but at least it's an acknowledgement that things aren't right, and some adjustments to the UI have already been made, as part of the [website] patch that went live yesterday:

Updated minimap to show tile ownership by player.

Added new information to the City Details screen that presents where a Town is sending its food and what Town a City is receiving food from.

Added Auto Unit Cycle option to toggle on/off when a Unit has remaining movement.

Policy screen now presents how many free slots are available.

Firaxis provided more in-depth commentary on its long-term plans in a statement released today.

"Over the last few days, the team has been poring over your feedback, including our most recent Steam Reviews during the Early Access period," the studio wrote. "As stewards of the Civilization franchise, we hold ourselves to a high standard and always strive to create the best game possible. Civ would not have come this far without you, and your opinions matter greatly to us."

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Firaxis mentioned it's identified "three key areas" to focus on, based on early feedback, and yes, the UI is top of the list:

Prioritizing UI Improvements: Our top priority is improving the UI. We need some time to digest all of your feedback, but some areas that we're already looking into include making UI interactions more intuitive, improving map readability, fixing areas of polish like formatting, and more. We're committed to getting this right, and will share more details as soon as we can.

Our top priority is improving the UI. We need some time to digest all of your feedback, but some areas that we're already looking into include making UI interactions more intuitive, improving map readability, fixing areas of polish like formatting, and more. We're committed to getting this right, and will share more details as soon as we can. Implementing Community-Requested elements: Several key elements that we've seen you ask for will be included in upcoming patches as free updates, and we'll continue to work with the community to improve and add to the game. We're still working on exact timing, but can share the following items are being prioritized: Adding Teams to multiplayer games so you can play cooperatively Allowing full player counts in multiplayer in all three Ages through refinements to our Distant Lands system. Allowing you to pick your starting and ending Age to allow for single or double Age games Providing a wider variety of map types Enabling city and religion names to be customized Adding in hotseat multiplayer.

Several key capabilities that we've seen you ask for will be included in upcoming patches as free updates, and we'll continue to work with the community to improve and add to the game. We're still working on exact timing, but can share the following items are being prioritized: Rolling Out Quality-of-Life Updates in Patch [website] (Deploying in March): Work is already well underway on Patch [website], which includes fixes and adjustments that were already on our radar. This list includes quality-of-life UI adjustments, ongoing AI balance and improvement, adjustments to diplomacy and crises, plus additional bug fixes.

There's no time frame for any of this, but I don't imagine we'll see wholesale changes anytime soon—updating the UI alone is a much bigger job than, say, tweaking some stats here and there. Firaxis noted a development roadmap will be shared as soon as possible.

"We will support Civilization 7 for years to come, and your feedback remains critical in helping us grow and build the future of Civ," Firaxis wrote in today's enhancement. "If you have feedback you’d like to share, please do so in the Steam Discussion forums or drop a thread in our official Civilization Discord Server. Thank you for being the best fans in the world. We're excited to be on this journey with you—see you in the game!"

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