This is information of interest to the entire gamer community. Just a few hours ago, the source code for Valve’s Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive video games was leaked, so they’re available on the network for anyone to download.
This information was disclosed by the Steam Database platform via Twitter, which mentions that the filtered source code is dated 2017/2018. According to this same report, Valve previously made the source code of TF2 and CS: GO available to Source engine licensees.
After he was linked to this leak, Tyler McVicker, founder of Valve News Network, called a conference via Switch in which he claimed that he knows the manager, in addition to adding that the source code was leaked into 4Chan: “The code was first leaked in late 2018; I contacted Valve to warn them, the person responsible is a former member of Lever Softworks Source Engine Modding,” McVicker says.
Valve confirmed the leak and asked the gamer community to ignore any alarmist messages, as there is no reason to believe that this can be used for malicious purposes: “We have reviewed the leaked code and believe that this is a forwarding of a limited CS:GO engine code repository, released for partners in late 2017 and filtered in 2018” , mentioned Valve’s message.
“We have not found any reason for players to be alarmed or avoid using current builds, although it is recommended to use official servers for added security.” Valve mentions that they will continue to analyze the situation, as well as request that any new related incidents be notified to them.
The consequences of this incident are still unknown, as many gamers still feel untrustworthy to use these developments. In addition, part of the community recommends avoiding the use of TF2 until Valve is officially pronounced on it. Many users fear that exploits to run code remotely in these games are already in development.
It should be noted that, so far, no incidents related to attacks have been reported to the enthusiasts of these two games. However, the fact that the source code is available to hackers remains a concern.
This is not the first time a Valve game is exploited by threat actors who encounter client-side vulnerabilities. Last year, Dr. Web experts discovered that nearly 40% of all active Counter-Strike 1.6 game servers were used by malicious hackers to try to inject malware into users’ devices to integrate them into a massive botnet.
He is a cyber security and malware researcher. He studied Computer Science and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2006. He is actively working as an cyber security investigator. He also worked for different security companies. His everyday job includes researching about new cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in enterprise security implementation.