ATLAS Taken Down Twice; Due to Players Using Server Exploits

• Massively multiplayer online game ATLAS suffered two separate server exploits last week that disrupted gameplay.
• The first incident occurred on January 17 due to an admin’s Steam account being hacked.
• The second incident on January 20 was caused by a server exploit that some players took advantage of.

Newly released MMORPG ATLAS suffered a shaky launch due to technical issues, and the developers had their hands full yet again last week with players gaining access to an admin account. In a separate incident, a small group of players used a number of exploits to disrupt gameplay for others. Some affected by the exploits received messages requesting them to sub to PewDiePie or had their gameplay disrupted in various ways.

ATLAS players suffered from these exploits first on January 17, when someone managed to compromise one of the game’s admin’s Steam account. The “hacker” was able to break into the game’s multiplayer server settings and spawned vehicles inside the server, killed other players and ruined gameplay. Grapeshot Games, the studio behind ATLAS, apologized for the incident and rolled back the servers to an older state to make up for any gameplay disruptions suffered by the players. However, on January 20, multiple players discovered an exploit in the game disrupted gameplay yet again.

The players responsible for the activity were banned from the game. An official statement from the ATLAS team revealed “multiple accounts have been banned in relation to this, by ourselves and BattlEye, though the evidence and our extensive logging indicates that this group does not have any specific ties to any one company, but are instead targeting streamers and large or well-known companies. We will continue our investigation and will take action on all involved accounts and companies when we learn of their involvement immediately.”

ATLAS administrator accounts were not compromised in the second incident and steps have been taken to ensure similar incidents do not happen in the future. This is not the first time that the “subscribe to PewDiePie” message has been spread through malicious methods. From printers to Chromecast devices, people are finding new means of promoting the YouTube star.

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