Nasty Dark Souls exploit lets hackers take control of your PC – could affect Elden Ring too

metro.co.uk:

Someone has discovered a hacking exploit in Dark Souls 3 and has given a public demo to alert FromSoftware.

FromSoftware has announced that it’s had to temporarily shut down the multiplayer servers for several Dark Souls games on PC. So far it’s not given an exact reason, only saying it’s to ‘allow the team to investigate recent reports of an issue with online services.’

Those issues may have to do with an exploit that could theoretically let someone hack another person’s PC and take direct control of it. This would allow the hacker to brick the PC, steal log-in details, and install malware.

The good news is that the only people who know of this exploit have no intention of using it and contacted FromSoftware to alert them, although the studio seemingly ignored their warnings.

In a message posted to the Discord server of the speedrunning community SpeedSouls, a user explains that the person who discovered the exploit proceeded to demonstrate it live on Twitch in a harmless manner, in order to attract FromSoftware’s attention.

Apparently, the exploit hasn’t leaked so nobody else should be able to pull it off, but fans have been advised to remain cautious anyway.

It looks like FromSoftware got the message, however, considering the servers for Dark Souls: Remastered, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls 3 have all been taken down.

The Discord comment adds that it’s possible that the same exploit could affect Elden Ring, which is due out next month. Considering how many people will likely be playing it at launch, that’s a lot of potential hacking victims.

With FromSoftware aware of the situation, it hopefully will have sorted things out by the time Elden Ring releases on February 22. At the moment, there’s no mention of how long the Dark