Hacked games are becoming more and more common. Whether you join ranked matches, trade in an in-game economy or spend your nights in a first-person shooter, you’ve probably encountered hackers in video games. Is this a sign? Will they ruin online gaming? Have they already?
Is Hacking Getting Worse, or Are You Imagining Things?
Browse any gaming forum and you’ll find a few posts lamenting the downfall of online multiplayer. Still, that’s anecdotal evidence. You have to ask yourself whether or not hacking in gaming is actually getting worse.
Hackers Are Making a Killing
The market for hacked games is huge. After all, roughly 33% of players admit to using hacks to improve their chances online. In one BBC interview, a 17-year-old cheat hacker going by the pseudonym Lucas revealed he makes about $1,900 weekly selling hacks. He claims those in “the top, top ranks” use his product, insisting some even use it in “proper tournaments.”
Sellers are literally running out of stock, according to some reports. This is possible because plenty of advanced hacks are subscription-based or invite-only. The fewer active copies there are, the less likely developers will catch on. Buyers get access for a few days, weeks or months at a time before they have to join the queue again.
But Maybe It’s a Skill Issue
Then again, you might just be imagining things. Admit it — you don’t win every match. Instead of taking the dignified L after an unseen sniper one-shots you in Day Z, you claim a hacker has infiltrated the game. After all, there’s no way they could’ve seen you. Right? Don’t feel called out. This time-honored tradition bridges video game genres and generational divides.
In an era of skill-based matchmaking and pay-to-win mechanics, blaming outside forces for admittedly embarrassing losses is easy. The same people who grew up blaming lag and stuck buttons for their defeats have moved on to bigger and better excuses. That said, there’s definitely some truth to their claims.
Why Hacking in Video Games Might Be Getting Worse
There’s a ton of money in hacking — like a ton of money. Even in an industry like gaming, there’s profit to be found. Studies suggest just 80 game-cheating websites rake in between $12.8 million to $73.2 million each year. And that figure excludes any money dark web hackers make from malware and cyberattacks.
As the industry grows, it becomes a larger target for gaming hackers. Think about it — AAA games are getting bigger every year, esports has gone mainstream and there are more active gamers now than ever before.
For reference, experts predict the Esports market will reach $13.2 billion by 2032, up from $2 billion in 2023 — a staggering 585% increase in just under a decade. This industry is a fruit that’s just become ripe for the picking.
Even new releases are feeling the pain. Take Call of Duty 6, for instance. It has a massive hacking problem. Just five days after unveiling a new anti-cheat system for Ranked Play, the developers handed out nearly 20,000 bans. This is particularly frustrating since there are exclusive rewards for high-performing players.
Unfortunately, gaming hackers can easily circumvent bans. All it takes is a burner email to create an Activision account. They don’t even need to buy the game. While PC Game Pass costs $11.99 as of 2024, they can join for as little as $1 with a special trial. It costs them four quarters — and whatever they spend on hacks — to get back in.
Valve’s highly anticipated third-person shooter Deadlock is experiencing much of the same. Just weeks after it was announced and the invite-only Alpha opened, aimbots and wall hacks began proliferating. Online games like these are simply vulnerable.
What Motivates Gaming Hackers to Cause Chaos?
Hacked games happen for several reasons. They may do it to feed their ego, gain viewers on their livestream, settle a score or farm in-game rewards. That said, their motives vary by their level of sophistication and determination.
Script Kiddies
Who poses the smallest threat? Who else but good ol’ script kiddies with credit cards? These people have basic knowledge of software, so they pay someone else for hacks. Their go-to is usually aimbots, boosting or wall hacks. Whether the game has an economy, a ranking system or a reward system, they’ll find a way to game it.
Intermediate Hackers
Games hacked by intermediate hackers are less of an inconvenience and more of a concern. Instead of losing a match, you stand to lose something more valuable. These people exploit vulnerabilities to get you banned, brick your save, delete your in-game house, kick you offline or corrupt your account. It’s sinister stuff.
You can find an example of this in Call of Duty: Warzone. In October 2024, Activision said it had fixed a bug that affected “a small number of legitimate player accounts.” In reality, one player supposedly weaponized the anti-cheat. The simply private messaged a signature like “trigger bot” to auto-ban others. They got thousands banned because they thought it was “funny.”
In Elden Ring, a hacking group invaded games and pulled something just as petty. The group broke save data by killing end-game bosses before players ever encountered them. This prevented quests and dialogue from triggering, making story progression impossible. One of the cons of Elden Ring online is that invaders may be hackers.
Sophisticated Hackers
Sometimes, hacked games are a serious security threat. It’s no longer about ruining the game. Instead, bad actors simply use the platform as a springboard. This happened in Cities Skylines II when someone injected a malicious dynamic link library file — fastmath.dll — into a mod’s directory. Upon launch, the executable would search for crypto wallets to steal from.
Matchmaking and Anti-Cheat Are Band-Aid Solutions
What are companies doing to curb the rise of hackers in video games? They’re deploying anti-cheat, of course. Unfortunately, malicious software and unpatched exploits evolve faster than their defenses.
Many game studios have tried getting around this with kernel-level anti-cheat — software that runs at the deepest layer of your operating system with maximum system authority. Supposedly, it’s harder for bad actors to find workarounds for defenses like these. More on that in just a moment.
As developers evolve, so do bad actors. Solutions like skill-based matchmaking, kernel-level anti-cheat and mod bans don’t address the root of the issue. In the case of GTA V, mod makers have taken to launching DDOS attacks and developing creative workarounds. Their solution made the situation worse.
The Trouble With Leveraging Kernel-Level Anti-Cheat
Gamers strongly dislike mandatory kernel-level anti-cheat — and that’s putting it lightly. Some claim it is unnecessarily invasive. Others say it emboldens hackers to go deeper to find workarounds, making hacks more elusive and putting their hardware at greater risk. These accusations aren’t just hypothetical.
Sometimes, kernel anti-cheat itself is the vulnerability. In 2022, bad actors exploited the code-signed driver that provided anti-cheat functions for Genshin Impact, allowing them to bypass privileges. Even though their targets had an antivirus properly configured, commands from kernel mode killed their defenses.
Ultimately, the victims were infected with ransomware — which wouldn’t have been possible if not for the kernel anti-cheat. The National Institute of Standards and Technology even put out a warning, stating the mhyprot2.sys anti-cheat driver does not restrict unprivileged function calls, allowing bad actors to execute code with system privileges.
Devs Are Using the Ban Hammer on Innocent Players
When devs go up against hacked games, innocents can get caught in the crossfire. This was the case for Cruz, the four-time winner of World’s First Raid races, who was perma-banned by Bungie. Apparently, Cruz used a cheat engine for Total War: Shogun 2 — a single-player game that came out in 2011 — to get in-game currency at the start of new games.
Bungie’s anti-cheat flagged the cheat engine when Cruz accidentally opened Shogun at the same time as Destiny 2. Cruz appealed the perma-ban, but the appeal was denied. Of course, that decision drew backlash. While the use of cheat hacks in single-player games like the Sims 4 is hotly debated, it is relatively harmless.
What You Can Do to Make Hacked Games Less Painful
Hacked games are the new normal for online titles. Unfortunately, they diminish the efforts of players who spend hours upon hours dungeon crawling, fighting enemies or farming. While developers are racing to outpace the lucrative cheat hacking market, their solutions have been lackluster so far.
For now, the only way to avoid cheaters — and malware, by extension — is to avoid going online. You can play games offline and create mods instead of downloading them. This isn’t a permanent — or pleasant — solution, but it’s one of the only 100% secure ways to game nowadays.
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