Valve vs Hackers : Round1

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Much to the dismay of Counter-Strike players everywhere, it appeared that the new v1.4 with the much touted anti-cheating solution got hacked within days. Well Valve just dropped the gauntlet and a cute surprise for the hackers. The tough stuff wasnt enabled yet! Here comes the first shot, part of an email from Eric Smith of Valve:

We've updated the security module used by "secure" Counter-Strike servers. Your server should update itself in the next while, so you don't need to do anything. This version of the security module detects versions of OGC and clients abusing the scr_ofs* cvars

Oh and a cute "YOU ARE CHEATER" message here. Given the infrastructure that's now in place as demonstrated by the auto-update of all the secure servers you can probably expect a few more things like this. To tell if a server is "secure" or not, there will not be a yellow icon next to the server in the in-game server menu. All CS servers are secure by default. Anyone notice a few less hackers out there?

Steve Gibson is the cofounder of Shacknews.com. Originally known as sCary's Quakeholio back in 1996, Steve is now President of Gearbox Publishing after selling Shacknews to GameFly in 2009.

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