Last month, Rockstar removed some of the last remnants of Rockstar Social Club.
At the time, we speculated on what this could mean. We were optimistic that Rockstar could have been building a better social network in time for Grand Theft Auto 6. But that no longer seems to be the case.
The Grand Accusations
YouTuber Mors Mutual Insurance has a new video called “Corruption inside Rockstar.” Mors makes accusations about Rockstar Social Club.
Mors claims that Rockstar Social Club was completely compromised years ago. This allowed hackers to get user information, even user accounts.
And the worst part is that Rockstar’s employees were themselves involved. To understand these claims, we need to review what Rockstar Social Club was.
The 411 On Rockstar Social Club
Rockstar Social Club was not a full social network per se, in the same way that Nintendo’s Miiverse was.
It was based on your Rockstar account, which you had to use to play games like Grand Theft Auto IV. Mors pointed out that users liked sharing in-game photos, custom creator tools, and forming and joining Crews.
Crews were Rockstar Social Club’s equivalent of Friend Groups or Communities. Rockstar also organized livestreams, events, and giveaways to keep their fans using the platform.
Why Rockstar Social Club Was Hacked
Mors shared one Rockstar Social Club account hacking story with a specific use case.
In 2022, one player’s account was hacked because he had a Crew with a two-character tag. At the time, users needed to use a minimum of four characters to make a Crew tag.
That made this account rare, and now, unintentionally valuable.
The Hacks Go Even Further
Mors also shared more incidents. A fellow YouTuber, Gilly Master, found his Crew lost all its members. The hackers left a message on the Crew Board: ‘Fix Rockstar Support Account Stealing Exploit’.
Hackers even went after the official Rockstar Games Crew itself. They announced a $ 10,000 ransom, but Rockstar chose to just delete it instead of talking to them.
How Did These Hacks Happen?
Mors doesn’t know the method hackers used to exploit Rockstar Social Club. He does know they found the vulnerabilities after Rockstar largely abandoned the website.
It was when they deprecated its features that those vulnerabilities came up. But the real story seems to be Rockstar Support.
Rockstar outsources its customer support to companies like Side, formerly known as PTW (Pole To Win). So this is partly happening because non-employees handle support.
Mors claims that Rockstar Support was either duped into working with hackers, or they were successfully bribed into joining.
Whatever the case, Rockstar has been quiet about this alleged hacking for all these years. Mors made this statement on Twitter following the video’s release:
Some of these have shown me their access to official Rockstar Support social club admin panels.
They even managed to get all my personal account data from my Social Club accounts. Hereby Rockstar failed to protect its own users’ data.
Will Rockstar Respond?
If there is sufficient noise made about this issue, Rockstar or their parent company Take-Two may be prompted to reassure users or provide more explanations.
We can’t guarantee anything. But it does seem that Rockstar Social Club users have reasonable questions that need to be answered.
In the meantime, you can watch Mor’s video below.
