GTA crashes as extreme exploit enables cheating

Updated on: 26 January 2023

Damien Black
Senior Journalist

GTA — Image by Miguel Lagoa / Shutterstock.

Rockstar’s flagship online multiplayer game Grand Theft Auto (GTA) has fallen foul of “extreme exploits” that allow unscrupulous players to cheat to their hearts’ content, according to rumors swirling on Twitter.

“New extreme exploits have appeared allowing cheaters to remotely add, remove or modify your stats and permanently corrupt your account aka [sic] ban/delete,” posted self-styled gaming monitor Tez2 on the social media platform.

Tez is urging players to abandon GTA until the bug is fixed, or at least play behind a firewall for added protection.

Tez said he was notified of the breach by another Twitter user who goes by the handle @HarryGotTaken.

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Judging by the feedback to Tez’s post, quite a few other players appear to have been taken by the glitch, too.

“Yesterday a modder crashed my game and I haven't been able to get back in since,” tweeted one. “This message pops up. I tried a lot of fixes shown on YouTube but it still isn't fixed. I don't know what to do now.”

“I remember I quit the online [version of the game] due to every other kid cheating, sad to see it has not changed,” lamented another.

In another post, Tez said Rockstar had been notified of the exploit and was working to resolve the issue.

“Rockstar is aware and has been logging any affected account before the first mod menu started abusing the new exploits,” he said.

The bug appears to have drawn attention from far and wide, as perhaps might be expected from one infecting a game that enjoys global popularity.

Russian-language hacking website Xakep issued a warning about the GTA exploit, in which it said: “A vulnerability has been discovered in the game that can lead to the loss of game progress, theft of game money, a ban, and other unpleasant consequences.”

It further warned that the exploit could allow remote code execution via GTA Online, which would allow maliicous hackers to remotely attack players’ computers with malware.

For those who simply cannot wait for the Rockstar reboot to get their next GTA fix, some help is at hand. Tez retweeted a post from Speyedr that features a workaround, although this will only work for single players, solo sessions, and non-hosting online players.