The latest vulnerabilities of Cyberpunk 2077 and PC gamers who are in potential danger
The latest updates about the vulnerabilities of Cyberpunk 2077, disappointed the fans of this game once again. The destructive power of the discovered security gaps is enough to let hackers take over the control of your PC. In the other words, hackers could have used malware attacks in mods to take over players’ systems.
CD Projekt Red has announced that they have fixed the vulnerability. However, their researchers have asked players to avoid using mods until it could remedy the problem. These vulnerabilities of Cyberpunk 2077 have been categorized as critical level issues. The recent issues challenge the whole system of the PC gamers, through custom save files and malicious code injected into mods. In fact, custom saved files operate as attack vectors. Attackers use malicious codes as tools to exploit.
What is Hotfix 1.12 and how does it fix vulnerabilities of Cyberpunk 2077?
Hotfix 1.12 is the cure that CD Projekt Red researchers have prescribed. Hotfix 1.12 prevents the buffer from overrunning. The other issue that can be fixed by Hotfix 1.12 is the non-ASLR DLLs. Hotfix 1.12 removes non-ASLR DLLs and replace them with ASLR DLLs.
As crowdsourced cybersecurity researchers have stated, implementing Hotfix 1.12 is useful enough to make cyberpunk players ensure about using mods.
How a game mod can be dangerous?
PixelRick is a member of the modding community who has discovered the issue. He believes that he has discovered this vulnerability by chance, and it is tricky to exploit it.
Cyberpunk 2077 creates a buffer overflow when the PC is loading the saved files. Buffer is where the data get stored temporally. Buffer overflow is a security gap that appears when the software overruns the buffer’s boundary while writing data to a buffer.
Buffer overflow can lead to redirecting the running thread to an old DLL. Thus, redirecting a running thread to an old DLL couldn’t be a serious vulnerability by itself, if DLL’s fixed known address had modern protection. That leads to the execution of “any local virus”. The crafted save file can be silent, after closing the popup I open, the real save file data is loaded by the game without errors. Unlike other vulnerabilities of Cyberpunk 2077, the main element that makes this vulnerability exploitable is players’ overtrust in mods.
Does it still worth playing Cyberpunk 2077?
No matter the platform, Cyberpunk is in a better place now than it was at launch. Thus, there are still several challenges that CD Projekt Red has to deal with them. The most important challenge for them is redeeming their character in the eyes of the gamers and investors.
Honestly, playing Cyberpunk 2077 is still enjoyable. This game has significant bugs. But the blow that negative propaganda inflicted on this game was tens of times greater than the blow that this game received from its bugs. The storyline is great. Also, the major part of the graphic issue has been fixed by CD Projekt Red. They have also fixed major vulnerabilities of Cyberpunk 2077 recently. If you ask does it still worth playing Cyberpunk 2077? I say yes, it worth it.
