Hacker RUINED MY COMPUTER

[NotYou 13]

Last night 3 of my clan members were all on US 104 along with 12 other people. Of those 12, 6 were Danny/Donny G. clan and 6 were all of another clan. 15 people on the server and ALL had clan tags.

My Clan was running around the NE airstrip and Greenshift heard a gun shot in the distance. We ran into the control tower and secured positions. Redshift stayed down stairs watching the closed doors while Green and blue(moi) went up to the tower. I took a position to watch the outside ladder while green looted the building. While Greenshift was looting a person wearing a skin I've never seen in game before (Like a Nija suit... i twas odd) "appeared" simultaneously shooting 2 shots. Those 2 shots killed Green and myself (Blueshift instantly. Redshift, who was still watching teh closed doors, was confused because he never heard shots and the doors downstairs never opened. Greenshift quits the server in a rage because an invisible just killed us, and Redshift aborts to the lobby to see who is on the server. I sat looking at my screen for a bit rather frustrated, as Redshift said the only people on the server were the same clan people who started.

This is when things turn ugly.

Redshift tries to leave the server and has issues. When he finally does get off the server he can no longer see any servers in the lobby. None, Nothing. He cannot close Arma and has to Cntrl+alt+del to get out.

When I heard this I tried backing out as well, but I cannot abort, respawn, disconnect or anything. I cannot do anything, so I am forced to cntrl+alt+del as well.

Both of us try to restart the game. Redshift's computer is slow and Arma takes minutes to respond and finally he can get into the online lobby where no servers appear.

me I cannot even get that far. My computer is also extremely slow, and i cannot even get that far. It gets to Receiving... and no further.

We both "End Task" on Arma 2 and restart Steam. We both continue to have the same issues as above (mine not loading up his being slow and not showing servers.)

I decide to restart my computer. This is where all hell breaks loose.

I perform a shutdown, fully shutdown, and the power back on.

Upon windows opening a CMD prompt appears and flashes quickly and then windows restarts itself. Then goes into a loop of restarting until it finally comes up with teh repair option (Win 7 64)

My Repair option states that my windows cannot be repaired. I can no longer get into windows on my computer. It has been corrupted and Repair does not work.

Redshift was more fortunate, but he still could not use Arma2 and ran a validation and found Arma2 to be corrupted.

The conclusion is a Hacker (obviously there was one) was able to backdoor through a hole in Arma to attack our computers. Yet the only people in the lobby were the same 6 clan members. That doe snot mean it was them, but it makes them (or the Admin) look bad.

All I can say is... I will not install this game back onto my computer after I secure erase and reformat.

For the rest of you out there, your taking a serious risk continuing to play this poorly designed game (not Rocket;s fault) if this kind of thing can occur. I truly hope none of you encounter this, but you need to be aware that it is possible.

Discuss all you want, Praise Rocket all you want, I'm off ad not going to read these forums any longer. I wasted money on this game to have my computer ruined and new I have to use my limited bandwidth (monthly cap) to re download my steam games and windows patches etc. etc. this is costing me money because of a poorly designed game with security risks.

Oh and if you say it was my fault... my OLD (changed immediately) password for my router... never accessed through the New computer that was ruined was !qZ@wX#ec$rV not very easy to hack hmmm.... this attack had to be through the Arma game.

[Huuwap 25]

Did you get your computer working again?

Honestly, I'd put this down to coincidental timing. It's easy to blame something completely unrelated when you don't know any better. Quite likely you installed some sort of malware between restarts or a physical component failed...I'm betting on malware, a physical failure wouldn't allow you to get to the OS even.

F8 on boot, select safe mode/safe mode with networking, windows key + r, msconfig, Diagnostic startup, restart. See if the problem persists. If not, you need to figure out which startup entry is causing you computer to restart and get rid of it, then run a full malware and virus scan.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Huuwap

[kentk94 194]

This is why I perform complete backups of my computer on a regular basis...to prevent catastrophic failure.

Sorry man, a little preparation goes a long way...

And it's not conclusion. 2 people out of hundreds of thousands is a coincidence. Perhaps there is something to it, but until more people have the same issues, it's coincidental at best.

I'm not quite sure how your computer is ruined. Seems to me like only your OS install was pooched. So tell me, how exactly is your hardware borked preventing you from re-installing it back to a state when you once had it? To me that's not exactly "ruined" it's an inconvenience. Drama queen much?

[Toad772 1]

Well for starters it is spelled "the" not "teh" and secondly even if what you say is true, your pc is not ruined you would just need to reformat.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Toad772

[gunnyrolling 15]

As the second poster said it may not have been arma, could have been a different piece of malware that was already n your computer.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Rolling

[Disgraced 1123]

Any Arma scripting vets want to jump in? Maybe a dayz dev?

It's a pretty serious accusation (I almost always assume the person is mistaken. I've seen people say that game patches ruined their hardware, &c.)

But is there a way I might leave ports open or something that this kind of thing could happen?

Not to my experience, but maybe other people out there have more to say?

[Anthrax12 46]

I'm sure that's not what happened, You might of got a virus that was turned on, You might have malware, You just might of fucked up your computer trying to do some thing or you downloaded a hack with a virus in it, But i do not think someone can back door you through arma 2.

1. you went to a site and downloaded a file with malware,virus,spyware in it.

2. you tryed to hack and got a virus.

3. you uninstalled some thing important.

4. Some one broke in via your router, (not hard for skilled hacker's).

5. you pissed people off and they fucked up your computer.

6. Your trolling.

I am 95% sure it did not come through arma 2, Post like this will cause people to freak the fuck out.

[Vertisce 158]

This topic is full of lulz...

The likely culprit for your PC issues is all the porn sites you have been browsing, not anything else.

I am 110% absolutely positive it has nothing to do with ArmA or DayZ in any way, shape or form whatsoever.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Vertisce

[boneboys 7988]

I've edited the Title.

Would you please contact or at least let the Admins of US 104 Chicago know of the situation.

[lordopeth 274]

I'm sure that's not what happened, You might of got a virus that was turned on, You might have malware, You just might of fucked up your computer trying to do some thing or you downloaded a hack with a virus in it, But i do not think someone can back door you through arma 2.

1. you went to a site and downloaded a file with malware,virus,spyware in it.

2. you tryed to hack and got a virus.

3. you uninstalled some thing important.

4. Some one broke in via your router, (not hard for skilled hacker's).

5. you pissed people off and they fucked up your computer.

6. Your trolling.

I am 95% sure it did not come through arma 2, Post like this will cause people to freak the fuck out.

Jack is always right.

[sheogorath 0]

With the whole cmd screen popping up, it just seem a garden variety thumbdrive or porn-borne malware gone bad.

In your friend's case, its seems Arma just shat itself on its CPU.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Very unlikely the two items are related. There are operating system level protections for this kind of intrusion even if the app itself is not secure they can't just burrow into your machine through it.

A recent steam update caused some problems, which it sounds like your friend encountered. It happened to me and I verified my game cache and Steam found 5 files corrupt and replaced them and the game worked fine after that.

So that's what happened to your friend. The steam update - not a hacker.

Which means whatever happened to you is probably unrelated to ARMA. It just so happened that you rebooted because of ARMA and that's when the issue cropped up. Random happenstance.

At least until I see some corroborating evidence.

[Tigger (DayZ) 24]

The "arma2 extremely slow + no servers can be found" is due to the auth servers (or whatever you call them) being down for a few hours. Everyone had that, unless they had some saved server IPs that they were using.

[danielchicken@hotmail.com 13]

The other clan must of been us...

Clan name: Elysium?

[Redshift 58]

The authorization server thing appears to be what my issue was. I am able to get back into the game this morning, but was not last night. So my issue was not really an issue.

No Elysium was not the other clan. I can't remember what it was, but it was a three letter acronym inside [brackets]. I know that is not descriptive, but we aren't trying to call anyone out on anything so it doesn't really matter. The person who killed them may have just been server hopping anyway and not related to any of the clans in the server.

It was very strange because both Blue and Green said the gunfire was very very loud, and yet within the same building I could not hear it. The person never came down the stairs from the top of the control tower either (I was aimed on and watching the stairs once I saw their names come across as killed), at least not for the minute or two I waited before backing out to the lobby.

It is always possible there was some type of coincidental failure on Blue's computer, but the timing is odd (though I suppose that is part of the definition of "coincidence"). But I have no trouble believing that a real hacker (not one of the script kiddies) could have attacked him. As for "porn virus" Blue is almost irritatingly one of the only guys I know who doesnt download porn, seriously Ive snooped through his computer in the past trying to find something and he just doesnt do it. Thats not to say malware couldn't come from some other source.

In the end I think he is just trying to let people know what happened, and to be wary, and possibly get some input from people on how to fix/prevent it from happening again.

[EdTheUniqueGeek 0]

As for "porn virus" Blue is almost irritatingly one of the only guys I know who doesnt download porn, seriously Ive snooped through his computer in the past trying to find something and he just doesnt do it.

Ah, ha! So you're the one who hacked his computer. :)

[kentk94 194]

In the end I think he is just trying to let people know what happened, and to be wary, and possibly get some input from people on how to fix/prevent it from happening again.

Which is fine, I get it, he's upset. But he just went a little off the deep end with the drama.

A full back up, restored, and he wouldn't have to re-download anything. I make it a habit to do a full backup after any major installs/uninstalls on my PC.

Edited July 26, 2012 by kentk94

[Izziee 128]

I'm a little concerned about this actually.

I have a different problem and while I'm sure it's okay (Or I'm not) I wonder if anyone can shed some light on it.

When I play Dayz, my firewall (norton 360...now! Before you all rag on norton, it's actually a pretty good piece of kit, except for one annoying bug in the latest version where if you add to many manual rules for the firewall it will crash and then you either have to let it add them automatically or reinstall, their apparently working on a fix, and it's happened twice to me so far so I've not bothered to add so many firewall rules manually this time. It still works, but I can't manually block something. It's both their fault and mine, mine for adding them too fast, theirs for not fixing it. However, it's a decent firewall but I think people don't like it since it's a resource hog..or use to be)

Anyway, when I play, either loaded from the six updater or launcher, unless I turn off norton tamper protection (which, I won't do!) I can get spammed with 30 pages of activity in 5 minutes (I usually get 2 pages a day),

Unauthorised access blocked (Access process data). The actor is C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\GAMES\STEAM\STEAMAPPS\COMMON\ARMA 2 OPERATION ARROWHEAD\EXPANSION\BETA\ARMA2OA.EXE

The target is Norton 360\Engine\6.2.1.5\ccsvchst.exe

This will spam every second over and over.

I believe norton is blocking it from accessing the registry keys.

It happens if I leave tamper protection on (I turned it off once, it didn't happen, but I don't turn it off otherwise)

Sometimes it can flood so much it shuts down the whole internet and I have to reboot.

Norton blame it on Arma saying that it shouldn't be trying to access the registry. That's all they'll say, they won't take fault and tbh, I do like norton since it does it all and it's a fire and forget kinda thing.

Can anyone shed some light as to why it's doing this?

Edited July 26, 2012 by Izziee

[rybo 171]

Over 3000 hours of play time in ARMA2 & been here since Flashpoint. Not a hack/script just crap luck....Sorry mate. If it was a virus your Antvir would pick it right up being Arma is not a complex coded game..Nuff said.

-Lock Thread-

Edited July 26, 2012 by RyBo

[Barney (DayZ) 9]

Lol,i said the same thing in this forum but the idiots did't believe me and called me a troll...The same thing happened to me..but he only gave me virus and my computer is slow as fuck..windows dosent work and im using something else..if you want to keep playing this game..well i hope you have 2 computers.

[ripbabyg@hotmail.co.uk 125]

This was a result of you been daft and probably downloading some super 1337 programs and nothing more, the more broad story is.

The hacker gained access to the RCD of the server, logged in and saw the different IP connections connecting to the server, chose everyone at once and sent out a Trojan that locked into you almost instantly, even with anti virus up, again this would be lengthy process and not something that could be done in a matter of minutes.

The more broader story, The hacker did as above got into the Servers RCD, got the connections and then took control of your PC to place his own applications onto your PC while powering down your anti virus, But this would obviously not be that possible as you mouse would show his movements.

Im going to go with, you not been careful while been online.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Authentic92

[Barney (DayZ) 9]

Over 3000 hours of play time in ARMA2 & been here since Flashpoint. Not a hack/script just crap luck....Sorry mate. If it was a virus your Antvir would pick it right up being Arma is not a complex coded game..Nuff said.

-Lock Thread-

And who the hell do you think you are to decide if a thread should be locked? Get out of my sight.

[Barney (DayZ) 9]

Also..If you live in the U.S and your caught hacking a game...your going to be in serious problem hacking is a federal thingy of the law idk...The same thing happened to mabinogi and maplestory...nexon ordered a law suit when they cought the hackers. :P

[TheSkera 0]

Be adviced sir, that sometimes Windows updates are known to cause these abnormalities! Very common in fact!

Depending on what you have installed of course in terms of microsoft related products etc. Also if windows update caught sniff of a driver update, and updated this behind your back, this could also be the conflict!

On one of my laptops i had a io/ps2 thing update for the touchpad, and when i let windows update do its thing, the pc was a total disaster after the reboot... i had to go to failsafe mode to uninstall the update, and find old driver discs to get the old driver in on the touchpad again!

So dont jump the gun mate :)

Windows update can be cruel, just as cruel as malware! Or a wonky gfx driver update fx!

[sagemred 85]

Okay, so what happened in-game was weird, but the situation you had with the server browser being stuck on "Receiving" and not listing servers sounds like you may have tried to log back on in the hours when the GameSpy main server was down earlier (everyone had this issue).

After that, it just sounds to me as if force closing caused some sort of error, especially likely if you ended the actual process.