Gaming platform Steam with serious vulnerabilities

[German]The gaming platform Steam have had serious vulnerabilities. Security researchers from Check Point have discovered that attackers can exploit the bugs found to repeatedly crash a player's session. Taking over a victim's computer or infecting all other computers connected to a third-party server are probably also possible. Valve has issued a patch, but 3rd party games may be vulnerable.


Advertising

The alert from the threat intelligence division of security vendor Check Point Research, which I just received, warns all video gamers who use Valve's Steam platform about dangerous vulnerabilities in the Steam library. As mentioned earlier: attackers can crash sessions, take over machines and infect all connected machines via third-party servers. To do this, the attackers enter directly into an online game. Potentially, every opponent can be a criminal. Steam currently reports over 25 million users. The ten most popular games currently include Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2 and Destiny 2, all of which were vulnerable.

Four vulnerabilities

The four vulnerabilities, CVE-2020-6016 to CVE-2020-6019, were found by Check Point security researchers in Steam's Network Library. This is also known as Steam Sockets, and is used both on Steam servers and in the computers of players installed Steam clients. This is because the Network Library is offered as a tool for developers who want to publish their games via Steam.

The attack

Hackers launch the attack by sending heaps of infected data packets to an opponent within an online match they are participating in. This does not require any interaction from the victim to accept the data packets. Afterwards, it is possible for the hacker to exploit the vulnerabilities and execute various commands, such as crashing a session or taking over the computer. The same works with complete third-party servers. Even the course of the attack is identical.

Vulnerabilities are closed

Check Point reported the vulnerabilities to Steam in September 2020. Three weeks later, patches for Valve's own games were rolled out. These must be installed on a mandatory basis before the next launch of a game. That's the good side of the story. But there is a negative side, namely third-party games. 

The third-party providers have been informed. However, they themselves are responsible for appropriate security updates for their games and must update the clients. Check Point suspects that titles and players may therefore still be at risk for which no patch is available.


Advertising

"Video games have reached an all-time high during the current crisis. But with millions of people currently playing online, a small security breach can become a serious problem for the respective game developers but also the privacy of gamers." Christine Schönig, Regional Director Security Engineering CER, Office of the CTO – of Check Point Software Technologies GmbH, explains:  

Through the vulnerabilities we exposed, an attacker could have taken over hundreds of thousands of endpoints every day, without the knowledge of the victims. It was also possible to sabotage online games, because attackers could crash the server at any time, thus abruptly ending the game for all players.

Popular online platforms are a good gateway for attackers. When millions of users log on to the same server, the explosiveness and resulting threat of a reliable exploit increases exponentially. Given the current surge in popularity and massive use of video games, the gaming industry should be scrutinized a bit more closely. Gamers should pay attention to which games they downloaded and played before September of this year, whether they have been updated accordingly, and whether their computer may be infected.

Check Point has published an overview of the issue, and all the technical details can be found in this article. Both articles are written in English.


Cookies helps to fund this blog: Cookie settings
Advertising


##1

This entry was posted in Security and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *