Unreal Security Hole

Screaming Lunatic writes "There seems to be a big security hole in the Unreal engine that has been around for about 5 years. It affects servers for a number of games and operating systems, including Linux (which accounts for about 40% of UT2003 servers). Epic has been working on a patch for about 3 months. Imagine the bad publicity games would receive if a worm on the scale of Slammer had been created." A Bugtraq post from Thor Larholm of Pivx, says that Marc Rein of Epic threatened PivX with "getting our lawyers involved with this"; the TechTV article Larholm cites (the same one linked from this submission), however, contains no mention of legal action. Rein nonetheless apologized for "those completely unfortunate comments" in a followup message to Bugtraq.

Comments

Uh oh...

[Electrode]

So, how long until we see the "Monster Kill" virus begin to make the rounds?

Watch out!

[Joe the Lesser]

Slammer_Worm is on a killing spree!
Slammer_Worm is on rampage!
Slammer_Worm is dominating!
Slammer_Worm is unstoppable!
Slammer_Worm is Godlike!!!

Re:Games are worse than drugs.

[leviramsey]

Am I the only one to see a whole generation being wasted by such games like CS? I know ppl who play it 12 hours a day, god damn it! If someone would compare the degeneration of health/brain etc from CS vs. Grass, I bet CS would win.

When you play CS, you're supporting terrorists!

$250/hr to play games?

[EvilStein]

"threatened PivX with "getting our lawyers involved with this""

No, let's not let the lawyers get involved. THey make enough per hour as it is - we don't need to pay anyone $250/hr to play Unreal Tournament for "case notes."

Wait.. then again, lawyers in Unreal Tournament games. Hrm. It could be an all-out fragfest on a level that nobody could have ever imagined before. I like that idea!

Re:$250/hr to play games?

[goatasaur]

Shit, spawn camping would be forgivable in that case.

I really like Rein's comment

[rasteri]

"I won't sugar coat this. We f***ed up on this. Yes this is real and yes this was brought to our attention and yes we should have fixed it by now."

I get the feeling that I'll be in my cold, cold grave before Microsoft starts releasing statements like this :)

But seriously, it's nice to see a large company admitting it has "F***ed up".

Re:I really like Rein's comment

[commodoresloat]

We f***ed up on this. Yes this is real

I thought it was unreal?

Aha!

[Anonymous Coward]

that's why I've lost so many matches! Somebody is executing malicious code that screws up my aim and makes me play like crap.

Movie Idea

[OwlofCreamCheese]

Now they should make a movie, where some kid installs this on his dad's computer at work, and his dad just HAPPENS to be the scientist involved in working the computers that controls nuclear weapons, and they have to play unreal, and if they loose: the world will be destroyed, so they put the kid in some virtual reality suit so he can get inside the game and play for real and save the day. oh come on! its as good a plot as any other videogame based movie, think of that and really tell me honestly that wouldn't be the plot of any unreal movie that came out....

Re:Movie Idea

[Iamthefallen]

Yeah it was with that chick from that other movie about a bus that had to speed around
a city, keeping its speed over fifty, and if it's speed dropped, it would explode!

I think it was called The bus that couldn't slow down.

Unreal players discussing the security hole

[joe_bruin]

GG
NEW MAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111
GG EVARYBODY
ZEROSTUD IS A CHEATER
YEAH, I
OMFG UR TEH LAMER
SHUTUP, U CAMPING FAG
[FGP]-Killaz-X -0- LAG!
NO LAG U SUX
NO FUCK YOU
I GET 20 PING
U GUYS HERE ABOUT TEH SECURITY THING??!
GG
NEW MAP
LATZ, IM GONNA PLAY CS
FUCK YOU
KILLING SPREE
UR CHEATING
KICK HIM
STFU U LAMR, YUO SUK
VOTE ON NEW MAP

Re:Links

[Zeinfeld]

More [bluesnews.com] at bluesnews.

I heard of Blues Clues, but Blue's news?

To play Blues News you have to find a bug
Stick it in your notebook and describe the hole you've dug
Find another pawprint, thats the second bug
Stick it in your notebook and go catch the cyber-thug
Find the last pawprint, thats the third bug
Stick it in your notebook, get your coffee mug
Sit down in the thinking chair and think, think think.
Cos when we use our minds take a step at a time you can dooo anything, and on billable hours too.

Re:Convenient Too!

[DASHSL0T]

That's like Microsoft providing a web page showing which IIS servers are still affected by code red and showing their IP's.

Given how well they did with patching their network over Slammer, I think the list would start with:
127.0.0.1

A Generation Already Wasted

[Myriad]

Am I the only one to see a whole generation being wasted by such games like CS? I know ppl who play it 12 hours a day, god damn it! If someone would compare the degeneration of health/brain etc from CS vs. Grass, I bet CS would win.

Frankly, if you're someone who routinely writes "ppl" in place of "people" you're already demonstrating such severe degeneration of health/brain that you may already be a lost cause.

Sooo...what I wanted to say is that I hope that someone f**k the game-servers up so badly that these trapped gamerz can see what life has to offer!

Might I suggest you take some of the same advice you give to these "gamerz" and check out what life has to offer. It appears to be passing you by.

Re:Let's not overreact here...

[Atomizer]

Yeah, just think the Unreal worm hits, and suddenly office productivity increases all over the world.

Could work for Kazaa, against RIAA

[Ilan Volow]

Kazaa's next legal defense will be that their software is not a file-sharing service but really an instant messaging server with a security hole that can be exploited to give access to a user's hard drive.