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Valve removes free game from Steam after players discover it contains malware

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Re: Valve removes free game from Steam after players discover it contains malware

#81

Post by WorldMaker »

blitzar wrote: post #45
galad87 wrote: post #13

Games are an almost perfect type of software to be run in a sandbox. The question is, why aren't they already run in a sandbox?

Is this not just an artifact of windows not sandboxing anything meaningfully and that itself is an artifact of punch cards?

Windows has a lot of powerful sandboxes. A lot of them Windows maybe made too easy to opt-out from and/or defaulted them to opt-in rather than opt-out which makes them things that developers need to learn or developers try to avoid or developers don't think they need.

Re: Valve removes free game from Steam after players discover it contains malware

#82

Post by subscribed »

malkia wrote: post #48
ux266478 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SteamOS leverages namespaces via pressure-vessel already. The problem exists exclusively on Windows. Paravirtualized drivers introduce API incompatibility issues and decades of cumulative engine infrastructure made for Windows using the Win32 API means nobody wants to swap over to using UWP and thus AppContainers are a non-starter (and that's without getting to sacrificing Wine/Proton compatibility). The native isola…

Sandboxing is quite easy (user-wise), once you install the sandbox system. By default it allows only a single sandbox, and with small `.wsb` file you can drive what's visible from the host, whether the GPU should be active, etc. - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/applicati... It's great for testing, and Sandbox is just the tip of the iceberg of what Windows Containers support - e.g. maybe someone ca…

Ummm, yeah, but Windows Containers is windows Pro and Enterprise only (security is an optional, paid extra on windows), and only for these using Hyper-V (meaning Virtual Box users are excluded).

Personally I'm coping with sandboxie.

Re: Valve removes free game from Steam after players discover it contains malware

#83

Post by subscribed »

blitzar wrote: post #45
galad87 wrote: post #13

Games are an almost perfect type of software to be run in a sandbox. The question is, why aren't they already run in a sandbox?

Is this not just an artifact of windows not sandboxing anything meaningfully and that itself is an artifact of punch cards?

Linux doesn't sandbox anything at all, unless you go out of your way for Bazzite or accidently run something from Flatpak/Snap.

Re: Valve removes free game from Steam after players discover it contains malware

#84

Post by ASalazarMX »

Frieren wrote: post #6

> However, someone reportedly hijacked the developer’s Steam account and quickly transformed it into Beyond The Dark – changing its name, screenshots, and other store details. As Steam does not fully verify every patch made to a game, the modified version was reportedly able to go live without raising immediate red flags. It is interesting that it seems to easier to take over a legit game than trying to create a new…

Now it makes sense why someone in a game development group mentioned he received an offer of $100 USD for his indie game. The buyer plainly stated that they were specifically looking to buy underperforming games. The developer didn't sell, but sadly $100 was more than he made in sales a year after launch, so it must have been tempting.

Maybe that's why they changed the game's name post-malware, to spam, er "promote" it as a new one and gain users quickly.

Re: Valve removes free game from Steam after players discover it contains malware

#85

Post by ASalazarMX »

macintux wrote: post #63
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #12

Surprised this or malicious games and updates hasn't happened sooner.

I remember, ~20 years ago, there was some free Christmas elf game (Flash?) that went viral and everyone was playing it. Struck me as a perfect vector for malware, I was a little surprised that didn’t happen.

~20 years ago it was still not rare for someone to email his friends a little Flash game or greeting card wrapped in an .EXE so they could run it straight from Outlook. In retrospective, those were crazy times. We knew about viruses from the time of MS-DOS, and still happily emailed executables that not even Hotmail or Google bothered to block.

All our network traffic was unencrypted, which enabled all kinds of shenanigans until the security culture seeped into corporations and the public.

When stories talk about time travelers that hijack old technology instantly, it makes complete sense. Someone with modern hardware, software, and knowledge could completely break most technology back then. They better not forget their modem, though.

Re: Valve removes free game from Steam after players discover it contains malware

#86

Post by flamesofphx »

macintux wrote: post #63
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #12

Surprised this or malicious games and updates hasn't happened sooner.

I remember, ~20 years ago, there was some free Christmas elf game (Flash?) that went viral and everyone was playing it. Struck me as a perfect vector for malware, I was a little surprised that didn’t happen.

ELF ELF BABY.... Elf Bowling, and Frog-a-pult... I wish NSTORM Games was a big market player now.. I guess someone let him borrow the canoe he was looking for...

Re: Valve removes free game from Steam after players discover it contains malware

#87

Post by Ferret7446 »

Levitating wrote: post #79
mschuster91 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Riot Games just today (!) admitted to hard-bricking cheating hardware [1]. This kind of stuff definitely is malware, and your comment aged like milk. [1] https://videocardz.com/newz/riot-games-on-valorant-dma-cheat...

Malware is deceitful, you're not aware of its presence. Anti-Cheat does what it's promises, and I've personally found Riot fairly transparent regarding Vanguard. You don't have to play Valorant, but if you do you probably want to play without cheaters. It's either get hated for having cheaters (like CS2) or get hated for having invasive Anti-Cheat (Valorant). There's no third option.

So if malware announces itself, it is no longer malware but anticheat?

"If you do not wire the money, the anticheat will activate and delete all your data"

Re: Valve removes free game from Steam after players discover it contains malware

#88

Post by tazard »

unethical_ban wrote: post #65
zufallsheld wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a new name. Proton is Valve's fork of wine. They also contribute patches to wine.

I think their point is proton is not an emulator.

P. I. N. E. from here on out then

Re: Valve removes free game from Steam after players discover it contains malware

#89

Post by cassianoleal »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #9
cassianoleal wrote: post #2

What about all the other games with malware, like Denuvo and similar?

I recommend installing Linux. If it wont play on Linux even with Proton, you shouldn't give them a single penny.

I only game on Linux. I don’t run Windows, period.

I like that it keeps those kinds of malware out of my reach, and I don’t mind skipping games that use them.

I would like for it to go away entirely though. Both because I find it an appalling practice, and because I want more gamers playing more games on Linux.

Re: Valve removes free game from Steam after players discover it contains malware

#90

Post by Levitating »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #87
Levitating wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malware is deceitful, you're not aware of its presence. Anti-Cheat does what it's promises, and I've personally found Riot fairly transparent regarding Vanguard. You don't have to play Valorant, but if you do you probably want to play without cheaters. It's either get hated for having cheaters (like CS2) or get hated for having invasive Anti-Cheat (Valorant). There's no third option.

So if malware announces itself, it is no longer malware but anticheat? "If you do not wire the money, the anticheat will activate and delete all your data"

> So if malware announces itself, it is no longer malware but anticheat?

If it announces itself after installation it would obviously be malware. But if the software does exactly what the user expects it to do, and the user installs it with consent, why would it be malware?

Otherwise BitLocker or a disk eraser would be malware just because it performs a destructive action.

Wikipedia goes by the same definition, it's harmful software that operates without the owners knowledge.

It may seem like a weird hill to die on, but calling every Anti-Cheat or DRM a "rootkit" or malware kind of takes any meaning away from the term. And is also just misinformative to the workings of DRM and Anti-Cheat.

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