Meccha Chameleon–a multiplayer prop-hunt recreation that is been blowing up on Steam lately–seems to have hit its first actual highway bump because it launched in early June. As identified by a participant who goes by Feint, a few of the recreation’s player-made maps are mainly simply Trojan horses containing malware. Certainly one of Feint’s mates had talked about briefly seeing a command immediate seem whereas they have been downloading the map. Curious, Feint dug into the information and concluded that the map often known as Lazer Tag Zero contained a “malware dropper.”
The map was shortly pulled from Meccha Chameleon’s Steam Workshop web page after Feint printed their findings in a Medium article. However the chaos was simply starting. Different malware-filled maps began showing, after which the sport’s official Discord server was hacked.
“Safety was fully breached, the server creator’s account was hijacked, and all admins have been banned, so we won’t take motion from our aspect,” Meccha Chameleon creator Lemorion_1224 shared in an auto-translated X submit over the weekend.
The information was additionally shared by way of an replace on the sport’s Steam web page, clarifying that the sport itself wasn’t a safety danger, and will nonetheless be performed safely so long as user-made maps weren’t used. Nonetheless, issues have been trying rough–the hackers even put up a faux itemizing for a Meta Quest-compatible model of the sport, which does not exist.
“At the moment, a product referred to as ‘Meccha Chameleon VR’ is accessible for preorder on the Meta Quest retailer, however we now have not granted any manufacturing permission for it,” Lemorion_1224 defined in an X submit shared early this morning. “We’re at present submitting a request for removing, so please chorus from buying it. We is not going to deal with any financial points arising from counterfeit merchandise.”
However after a weekend of abject chaos, it appears issues are lastly stabilizing. A couple of hours after the announcement concerning the faux Meta Quest product itemizing, Lemorion_1224 revealed {that a} new replace is now stay for the sport.
Mini-update 3.3.1 replaces the Discord hyperlink on the sport’s title display screen with a hyperlink to the proper server (which is now again within the possession of Mecca Chameleon creators Lemorion_1224 and Haganiero), fixes a bodily collision problem, and maybe most significantly, strengthens virus safety, although it isn’t clear if the problem with player-made map malware has been totally resolved for good.
For now, the most secure guess might be sticking to the sport’s default maps.
