In the past two weeks, people have been flocking to Red Dead Redemption 2 to try out the new Naturalist update. While some have been left to study the animals in peace, others have fallen prey to the hackers who never left. One mud in particular has taken it to pose as streamers in a bid to get them banned.
Things started to escalate on Friday, July 31st, when streamer HazardousHDTV announced the new update with its community. He soon crashed into a mud that pulled him out of an event in free mode and into her lobby, spun others on top of him, and then killed everyone by blowing them up. Has been transformed into a human dynamite stick is not uncommon for Red Dead Online, Hazardous tells me he left the lobby and took a few minutes to regroup. A few minutes later he came back and joined a new lobby only to meet the same old chaos with a new twist.
“This cheater cheated on my name, disguised herself as me, and the game announced to every other player that I was the one who killed her,” Hazardous says. “My hostility increased in-game, and the game gave me XP for player kills. I quickly Alt-F4ed and ended my stream. ”
While Hazardous ended his night there, the mud did not. Under the attention of another Red Dead Online content creator, they are pursuing a streamer called SwolTV.
“About 40 minutes into my stream, the hacker started attacking me by the name ThatDevilJames,” Zwolle tells me. ‘He had sounded James’ social club name and used that in the lobby. After a while, the hacker started spewing the whole lobby above me and then blew everyone up. It turned out I was the one who killed everyone, and they blamed me for the heels. ”
Changing your display name to Red Dead Online has been possible for some time. One former GTA Online modder I spoke to earlier said it was a trick “old as [their] grandmother “. While you can see through this by looking at the person’s profile, a few are going to have trouble checking in, and are simply blaming who Red Dead Online says he killed them for.
After his conversation that he told that the identity deep was the same that Hazardous and others directed, Zwol tells me that he switched from PC to PlayStation to continue his stream in peace after an hour of deliberate harassment. The mud could no longer join his lobby – but he was still not safe.
“Within minutes of playing on PS4, I noticed the bit rate of my streaming software kept dropping to zero,” he says. “The hacker was able to get my IP address, and because he could no longer attack me on Red Dead Online, he started attacking my internet, which resulted in several disconnections from Twitch before finally my bitrate never recovered and I no longer could connect with all. My normal stream of four hours was shortened by an hour and a half. “
So how is the mud able to jump free in the lobbies of streamers and attack their internet after they leave? Hazardous tells me that all it costs is a paid mod menu. With one of these, modders can invade your lobby or force you to join. They can see your IP, ISP, zip code, country, region, and more, all too. Hazardous then sent me a link to a video from DarkViperAU, which goes into more depth on the subject than it does for GTA Online.
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“They can so easily access your sensitive account and personal information due to major flaws in Rockstar Games’ security systems for their online products,” explains Hazardous. “Because my account information and personal IP were compromised, I could not do my job, and I needed to get a completely new modem to get another IP to escape this.”
After talking to Hazardous and Zwolle, I watched through YouTube and found several Red Dead Online mod videos showing modders looking at the information Hazardous players describe or frame for something they have not done. Not only does personal information appear to be available to people for cheaters, but it is now visible in these videos for everyone to see. I reached out to Rockstar for comments on players’ IPs and details about real life vulnerabilities, but have yet to hear from writing.
Since that Friday, July 31st, both streamers have been telling me that the harassment has not stopped. While Zwolle remains on PS4 and Hazardous remains off-air, both have either become impersonal or have ceaselessly attacked their internet.
“On Friday [July 31] I was lucky not to have that happen, but since Saturday I have received DDoSed several times every day, ”says Hazardous. “I have not been able to create content for my YouTube or stream on Twitch because my internet is constantly offline.”
Zwol tells me that he managed to make it a few days without becoming offline or personalizing. But that would change when he went live on Tuesday, August 4th.
“A lot of streamers were having my conversation going on while I was live to ask why I was harassing them and writing my channel,” says Zwolle. ‘I had no idea what they were talking about, and I showed them that I was not even on the PC. They said someone was blowing up the whole lobby on PC, targeting streamers who were live and calling out my twitch channel – SwolTV. “
Just a head up, the same hacker who bothers me #reddeadonline PC, now using my name in lobbies while writing grief from other streamers and my channel. I am NOWAY connected to this person. I’m back on PS4 and will stay until this is resolved pic.twitter.com/ou2TCheasE
– 🦍ᵀⱽ (@TRUESWOLDIER) August 5, 2020
Hazardous and Zwolle are also not the only streamers affected. Someone collected several clips of grief that other content creators passed on and posted it to Reddit (above). Living through that practice would be intrusive and annoying for everyone, but, as Swol and Hazardous explain, it also affects these skills of these content creators.
“This is not just a game – for a streamer, this is our existence,” says Zwolle. “Their actions cause a loss in our real-life income.”
Hazardous adds: “It has interrupted every game time I have. But more importantly, it has stopped me from doing my duties of making YouTube videos and live streaming. Because of the DDoS attacks, easily done by a user who can get your IP address from the game, my internet has been more offline than it has been online since Friday 7th August. It has had a huge impact on my existence, my businesses, and my ability to deliver the content my community has expected and enjoyed from me. “
Although this particular mud has become visible since she’s been to streamers in the past two weeks, Hazardous tells me that she’s saddened other Red Dead Online players for a long time.
“The issue with this cheater did not start with us and certainly did not end with us,” Hazardous explains. “There are videos on YouTube and Reddit of this cheater dating back to March, with players sending me tweets and Discord messages from hackers, all of whom appear to be the same person.”
This is not the first time Red Dead Online hackers have put unsuspecting players at risk of suspension. Earlier this year, mudslingers brought in people to open hacked treasure chests to get them banned.
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To reduce the risk of bans, players are once again calling on Rockstar to introduce private lobbies so that they will be safer playing Red Dead Online, a suggestion with which Hazardous agrees. “That may be the only solution for players if they want to leave alone,” he says.
While Rockstar has yet to confirm if private lobbies are planned, member company Take-Two has said there will be another update of Red Dead Online before the end of the fiscal year. It is currently unknown what community-requested fixes it will bring, but calls for private lobbies are only getting louder.
