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A ban threatens even those who do not enter the game. Whose "accounting" will be next?
A Russian-speaking researcher under the nickname timoxa5651 recently published information on the UnKnoWnCheaTs forum about a critical vulnerability in the BattleEye (BE) anti-cheat system, which allows you to fraudulently gain control over the identification of players and initiate the blocking of other people's accounts. The problem affects popular video games such as Escape from Tarkov, PUBG and DayZ.
The discovered method, called "BannleEye", exploits the interaction of the "BEClient.dll" and "BEServer.dll" libraries through which the game communicates with the server to verify the user. During the system initialization process, the "gameName" field is used to determine which server will be connected to.
The researcher found that spoofing the name of the game allows «BEServer.dll" to connect to other people's game backends. For example, the DayZ server can be registered under the name Escape from Tarkov, thereby creating a "fake" game server.
This scheme allows you to change the user ID for any game session. The experiment showed that it was possible to intentionally trigger an anti-cheat system on a fake server by redirecting data to the real server on behalf of another player. As a result, BE initiates a global account ban, even if the owner has not logged in to the game for a long time.
According to the author of the study, to eliminate the vulnerability, it is enough to enter a unique secret key for each project. He gave the example of Easy Anti-Cheat, which uses the X-Secret-Key parameter to prevent such attacks.
The timoxa5651 method caused a heated discussion on the forum. One participant noted that BE probably considers any game server to be safe by default, which allows the exploit to work in many games. Other users expressed doubts about the ability of the authentication system of Steam and Epic Games to cope with this vulnerability, given the lack of token validation in some games.
The problem highlights the risks of trusting anti-cheat systems only at the server level. Experts believe that without the implementation of additional measures, BattleEye will face a wave of abuse. This situation reminds us that even the most advanced technologies require constant review and updating, and need regular security improvements.
Source
A Russian-speaking researcher under the nickname timoxa5651 recently published information on the UnKnoWnCheaTs forum about a critical vulnerability in the BattleEye (BE) anti-cheat system, which allows you to fraudulently gain control over the identification of players and initiate the blocking of other people's accounts. The problem affects popular video games such as Escape from Tarkov, PUBG and DayZ.
The discovered method, called "BannleEye", exploits the interaction of the "BEClient.dll" and "BEServer.dll" libraries through which the game communicates with the server to verify the user. During the system initialization process, the "gameName" field is used to determine which server will be connected to.
The researcher found that spoofing the name of the game allows «BEServer.dll" to connect to other people's game backends. For example, the DayZ server can be registered under the name Escape from Tarkov, thereby creating a "fake" game server.
This scheme allows you to change the user ID for any game session. The experiment showed that it was possible to intentionally trigger an anti-cheat system on a fake server by redirecting data to the real server on behalf of another player. As a result, BE initiates a global account ban, even if the owner has not logged in to the game for a long time.
According to the author of the study, to eliminate the vulnerability, it is enough to enter a unique secret key for each project. He gave the example of Easy Anti-Cheat, which uses the X-Secret-Key parameter to prevent such attacks.
The timoxa5651 method caused a heated discussion on the forum. One participant noted that BE probably considers any game server to be safe by default, which allows the exploit to work in many games. Other users expressed doubts about the ability of the authentication system of Steam and Epic Games to cope with this vulnerability, given the lack of token validation in some games.
The problem highlights the risks of trusting anti-cheat systems only at the server level. Experts believe that without the implementation of additional measures, BattleEye will face a wave of abuse. This situation reminds us that even the most advanced technologies require constant review and updating, and need regular security improvements.
Source
