According to the security firm Dr. Web, of the approximately 5,000 registered Counter-Strike 1.6 game servers online, 39% are malicious.
Trojan.Belonard gets installed on a device upon connecting to a malicious game server. The Trojan exploits vulnerabilities of the game client and is able to infect both the Steam versions and the pirated builds of Counter-Strike 1.6 (CS 1.6). Once on the victim’s computer, the Trojan replaces the files of the client and creates proxies to infect other users. Such a scheme usually serves to create a network of infected computers, which can be used to promote game servers for money.
The Belonard malware promotes a particular community and displays ads to players, however its primary use is to:
promote legitimate CS1.6 multiplayer servers by adding them to the users' available server list, which the Belonard developer would do for a fee.
Additional Coverage on SCMagazine and ZDNet
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 16 2019, @05:26AM (3 children)
The Jews did it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday March 16 2019, @07:33AM (2 children)
I do have an alternative narrative though.
I remember this game. Used to be my favorite.
Company that made it, killed it. Couldn't make enough money living up to the deal they originally offered, sorry!
No, they never said sorry. If they had said sorry, perhaps I would not want to see them die.
Now, the ghosts of that old-time goodwill are exploited by scammers.
A microcosm of what passes for society these days.
Just... stop. Learn to work for a living. It's not so bad.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @09:02AM (1 child)
Oh sure, you may get the memos.... But do you know the secret handshake and have the signet ring?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday March 17 2019, @06:32AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @09:39AM
There are many, many hilarious bugs in CS 1.6. A client can infect the server, and all other clients.
It's been this way always. So now, only the enthusiasts and people using it as an infection vector are left, everyone else moved on to cs go or whatever the latest version is called?
i had thoughts of a similar infection strategy at time when cs 1.6 was king, many years ago.
The idea was to make a bot to connect to all cs 1.6 servers, infect server to infect all who connect and go to next server.
Use a customised version of DHT/KAD over HTTPS for swarm communication in order not to stand out, etc.
In the end i never implemented it because lazy and there were several other strategies at the time that had higher number of users and were easier and more fun to exploit.
cs 1.6 also provided a good way to get a key for whatever popular game the people playing in cs 1.6 times, when one needed one.
I think it took me on average under 15 minutes to go into a random cs server, take over some win machine and search registry for the key... simple times.
And as far as i know, similar bugs were present in other 3d shooters of that era.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @12:31PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5cBkhYBVt8 [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by richtopia on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:56PM
Being in high school just after the turn of the century I played a LOT of 1.6. The biggest reason is I stumbled upon a dedicated clan server that had a really strong community: the regulars were vocal and the clan actively managed problem users.
About once every five years I get nostalgic for Counter Strike and reinstall it. The server I used to frequent is long gone, and I find it impossible to find any server with a reasonable map rotation and doesn't have tons of mods. Which brings me to my point: private servers are both good and bad. Massive customization can lead to malware and difficulty finding a vanilla game experience, but customization can also lead to completely new game experiences. I also don't see the same communities building like I did with the 1.6 clan I played with. With most games implementing a fashion of auto-join a public server, you are always playing with new people, and you need to use some type of friend system to join a game with people you know. As a very introverted 15 year old, being able to join a vocal server was entertaining and I did not need to talk at all myself.
Rereading my post I don't think I was clear: when I say Private Server, I mean a server hosted independently that is publically available. When I say Public server, I mean a server managed by the game publisher with the specific server invisible to the user.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @04:13PM (2 children)
Sauerbraten is good but dead, there's normally one good match going and has been for years. Instagib in venice gets old, but insta ctf with decent maps recently became popular instead so that's nice. It's free, doesn't require any account (angel choirs), and probably in your repos already. apt-get install sauerbraten today!
(Score: 1) by The Vocal Minority on Sunday March 17 2019, @05:53AM
Sauer is great. It's pretty much all I play these days, which isn't a lot. The "Trouble in Sauertown" and the zombie mod servers are good when there are players and the skiddies/trolls aren't being too much of a problem.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday March 19 2019, @06:50PM
Unfortunately I don't have any open source recommendations. I enjoyed Warsow and it was really polished, but I'm unsure if there is a player base today.
I will recommend the Serious Sam series. Watch a youtube video to see if you are interested in killing 100s of aliens at once. Part of the reason I recommend Serious Sam is Croteam's support of less popular technologies: linux support, xbox 360 or Steam controller support, split screen multiplayer on the PC, co-op mode on the campaign, and even VR, although I have not tried that. SS3 goes on sale regularly for a couple dollars.