The ‘Dark Souls 3’ security hole allows attackers to hijack your computer

You may not want to play a Dark souls play online for a while – not necessarily you can. As flaw and The Verge report, attackers have discovered security feat in Dark Souls 3 (and potentially Elden Ring) for Windows, which allows attackers to remotely control and effectively hijack your computer. Streamers like The_Grim_Sleeper have learned about the potential damage first hand – in his case, the intruder ran Microsoft PowerShell and ran a text-to-speech script that ignited him for playing.

The exploiter may not have malicious intent. Post on SpeedSouls Discord claimed the hacker was trying to warn developer FromSoftware about it Dark Souls 3 vulnerability, but turned to compromising streamers to highlight the problem. Few people other than the perpetrator are aware of how to use it, but there is already a patch for the unofficial Blue Sentinel anti-cheat tool.

FromSoftware and its publisher Bandai Namco have since responded to the exploitation. They are temporary shut down player vs. player servers for Dark Souls 3 and its predecessors as the security team investigates deficiencies. It is not certain when the servers will return online, but From and Bandai will obviously not renew the service until they are reasonably convinced that the players are safe. More vicious attackers could take advantage of the shortcoming to steal sensitive information, destroy player systems and otherwise do serious damage.