From GTA 6 leaks to GTA Online PC RCE exploits: Everything that happened in the last couple of months

Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto 5, and GTA Online are currently the subject of heated debate, with the gaming community enraged at the developer for disregarding genuine complaints. The recently discovered remote code-execution malware on PC has once again dragged the gaming company into controversy, and fans are demanding definitive solutions from it.

However, Rockstar Games has been the subject of numerous controversies in recent times. Since September of last year, the gaming studio has faced constant challenges from both hackers and players.

While everything appeared to be fine following the release of the Los Santos Drug Wars DLC and related patches in December 2022, hackers have once again exposed the flaws in Rockstar's online services.

This article covers all the problems and controversies that GTA Online and the developer have encountered in recent months.

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GTA 6 leaks, source code disclose, RCE exploitation, and other controversies Rockstar Games faced in recent times

On January 22, 2023, PLTytus, a well-known Rockstar Games informer, shared a tweet where they mentioned some recent controversies with the company. The user provided a quick rundown of the controversies, beginning with the Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks to the most recent PC-hacking exploits in the Grand Theft Auto Online.

On September 18, 2022, at approximately 3:26 AM, a user known as "teapotuberhacker" leaked the upcoming game on the GTAForums website. They claimed to have hacked into Rockstar's servers, and leaked approximately 90 videos from the under-development game.

The post spread like wildfire, with the entire gaming community, including mainstream media, discussing the gaffe. It took nearly 48 hours for the studio to issue an official statement, which also confirmed the leaks.

While the wound was still fresh, hackers attacked Rockstar Games' server again, this time directly affecting the players. The "Account Stealing Exploit" gave them access to GTA Online Crews, allowing them to wipe out the entire team, remove the leader from their position, and remotely delete the leader's account.

The hackers were also able to quietly remove the two-factor authentication security measure from the targeted account.

Again in November 2022, several players reported that their game randomly crashed and shut down in the middle of a session. While the problem appeared to be hardware-related at first, it continued to spread to all players, causing fans to be outraged at Rockstar Games.

Over the same month, rumors began to circulate that a portion of the GTA 5 source code had been leaked on the popular coding and programming website, GitHub. This brought up the GTA 6 fiasco once more as the leaker had previously claimed to have obtained and sold the 2013 game's source codes. The matter is still unconfirmed and has vanished into the ether.

On December 30, 2022, popular Rockstar Games informant Tez2 reported a new exploit called "remote crash and kick exploit" that can disrupt PC users' gameplay in both single and multiplayer modes. They claimed that hackers can remotely crash other people's games without having a direct peer-to-peer connection with them.

The issue is still being debated, and in January, data miners discovered that mod users in GTA Online can block in-game reports and disrupt players who try to report them to Rockstar Games.

While this was sufficient to expose Rockstar's flaws, the recent RCE exploits caused PC players to abandon the multiplayer game and any other online services offered by the studio.