Grand Theft Auto Online has been compromised again, leaking billions of dollars to unsuspecting players. Of course, these are far larger amounts than what Rockstar provided in its stimulus, and so it was immediately outed as a hack. The exploit is elaborate and relies as much on social interaction as it does on technical hacks. Sit down as we tell the story of how players take GTA robbery to a meta level.
The exploit involves modding .rpf files. Editing these files is ridiculously easy. It only takes opening them up in Notepad. It also involves jailbroken PS3s, which can interact with nonmodded units thanks to the data transfer utility. Finally, the exploit is possible because the way game counts numbers was outed.
So this is what happens: GTA is played on the jailbroken PS3, which itself has received several patches. The liquor store robbery missions are played, and thanks to the modding, they get the maximum amount from the job every time, which is 973 million dollars. Afterwards, they “share cash from last job.” As a result, players are getting in-game cash from random strangers that number in the billions.
The exploit causes a dilemma for players on the straight and narrow on several levels. Of course, the cash payouts was recently adjusted so that players can enjoy more of their playtime. Players who received the cash but don’t want to be tagged as cheaters are placed between a rock and a hard place. The only logical action they can take is report that the event occurred to Rockstar. Of course, some were just fine with taking the money and just getting straight to buying things.
The clincher? When you think about it, the way players have gotten around the game’s restrictions to make money illicitly mirror the game’s own scenarios, to an uncomfortable degree. Hints are dropping that Rockstar is aware of the exploit and is working on it, but they have yet to release official word.
Source: Reddit