Anti-cheat system ‘Punkbuster’ gets attacked

A junior member of a hacking group and his “team” are focusing attacks on Battlefield 3 users–banning them from play–to show their disdain for the anti-cheating software Punkbuster.

January 24, 2012 5:45 PM25

One “junior member” from the game-hacking site Artificial Aiming and his team of anonymous hackers are going after the anti-cheat service Punkbuster, resulting in multiple reports of Battlefield 3 multiplayer bans.

According to a report from Kotaku, the hackers are “framing” innocent Battlefield 3 players to show their hatred for the anti-cheat software “integrated” into DICE’s latest shooter.

Citing “very easy” access, the hackers are keeping their sights set on Battlefield 3 players tied to GGC-Stream. “We have selected ggc-stream as the target since they have the most streaming bf3 servers and makes it very easy to add fake bans. In 2011 we hit them with a mass ban wave and now were are banning real players from battlelog while ggc-stream is totally unaware. We have framed 150+ bf3 players alone,” a forum post reads.

Users across the Battlefield 3 forums, Twitter, and Reddit have been appalled at the attack. EA has yet to address the concerns specifically, but have acknowledged errors with Punkbuster.

An official comment from EA to Kotaku focused only on Punkbuster’s service status and not on unauthorized bans from playing the game, reminding users that the issues are PC-specific. Until Punkbuster issues have been corrected, EA recommends players avoid playing on servers requiring the software.

“We are actively looking into the specifics of this issue and we are confident that we will have a permanent solution in place shortly. In the meantime, if a player’s connectivity has been affected, we recommend that in the interim they join servers that are not running PunkBuster. There is a filter setting for this in the multiplayer server browser,” an EA spokesperson said.

Shacknews has contacted both Even Balance–operators of Punkbuster–and GGC-Stream for comment, but have not heard back at the time of publishing.