Tuesday, December 31st 2024
Path of Exile 2 Security Breach Blindsides Players With Lost Loot As Developer Remains Silent
A new security breach is trying to pump the brakes on Path Of Exile 2's overwhelmingly positive late 2024 launch, as a mysterious hack appears to be making the rounds in the new RPG, although the source of the vulnerability is yet to be identified. According to a growing number of posts on the Path of Exile 2 forum, subreddit, and even the game's Steam reviews, players are apparently logging into their PoE 2 accounts only to find that all their loot and gear they've now spent dozens or even hundreds of hours grinding for, has been removed from their accounts. The most alarming thing is that nobody seems to know how these hacks are happening. Some players say they changed their main email address and Steam login passwords days before they were hacked, and most seem to have no Steam 2FA requests, suggesting that there is either a security issue with the Path of Exile 2 game servers or there is some sort of session hijacking happening that is giving bad actors access to player accounts.
Until now, Grinding Gear Games, the developer behind Path of Exile 2, has not openly commented on the hacking incidents, with a single comment from the support team on the forum advising players to email support about it if they encounter such instances. According to the Steam review mentioning an account hacking incident, however, the player managed to track down the hacker on his own, subsequently contacted support and posted about it in the PoE 2 forum, and asked the moderator to assist in preventing the sale of the rest of his goods. This attempt was apparently enough to get the gamer's forum posts removed and put on probation. Meanwhile, the support request was met even more unkindly, with PoE 2 support going so far as to lock him out of his own account. He also isn't alone, with others in the Path of Exile 2 forum reporting that sharing the in-game name of their alleged hacker with support has led to their game account being locked.
Some have theorized that the hacks are linked to real-money trading or third-party in-game overlays or mods, however this has been refuted by a number of victims in the game forum. Currently, it seems like players have little hopes of getting the gear or items they lost in the hacks back, since adding a swathe of rare items into the game's economy out of the blue would likely be bad for the overall balance.
For the time being, until Grinding Gear Games finds a way to reliably deal with the hackers, it looks like players will just have to be extra careful who they interact with and how they keep their online gaming world secure, although there seemingly isn't much security from this threat in the likes of strong passwords or even Steam 2FA. While Path of Exile 2 is still in early access, meaning oversights and bugs are to be expected, it is also a paid early access period, so many gamers somewhat reasonably expect that security issues would be dealt with more swiftly and decisively than they have been so far.
Sources:
Path of Exile forums, Path of Exile 2 on Steam, r/PathofExile on Reddit
Until now, Grinding Gear Games, the developer behind Path of Exile 2, has not openly commented on the hacking incidents, with a single comment from the support team on the forum advising players to email support about it if they encounter such instances. According to the Steam review mentioning an account hacking incident, however, the player managed to track down the hacker on his own, subsequently contacted support and posted about it in the PoE 2 forum, and asked the moderator to assist in preventing the sale of the rest of his goods. This attempt was apparently enough to get the gamer's forum posts removed and put on probation. Meanwhile, the support request was met even more unkindly, with PoE 2 support going so far as to lock him out of his own account. He also isn't alone, with others in the Path of Exile 2 forum reporting that sharing the in-game name of their alleged hacker with support has led to their game account being locked.
For the time being, until Grinding Gear Games finds a way to reliably deal with the hackers, it looks like players will just have to be extra careful who they interact with and how they keep their online gaming world secure, although there seemingly isn't much security from this threat in the likes of strong passwords or even Steam 2FA. While Path of Exile 2 is still in early access, meaning oversights and bugs are to be expected, it is also a paid early access period, so many gamers somewhat reasonably expect that security issues would be dealt with more swiftly and decisively than they have been so far.
45 Comments on Path of Exile 2 Security Breach Blindsides Players With Lost Loot As Developer Remains Silent
Its a shame but it seems money corrupts here, too. I liked PoE a lot better when it offered less and as a result demanded less.
What I was trying to say is I've played the first one from beta all the way to the removal of difficulty levels and restructuring into 10 chapters. What I found was:
- enjoyable experience
- very intimidating skill tree, but a warm feeling when figuring out a good build
- end game content kind of accessible for SSF (couldn't reach many areas, unfortunately)
- difficulty would scale to insane levels (I imagine that also gave a warm feeling to those able to overcome that)
- had to buy stash, several times. didn't feel like p2w, but rather like rewarding the devs for giving me something I still wanted to play
The only part I didn't enjoy is nothing to do with PoE, but with online titles in general: eventually the game takes a back seat and your primary concern has to be trading. And not trading like exchange X for Y item. I mean stock exchange level of watching the prices, hoarding "currency" and trying to score a good deal. It's what all online titles have to do to keep items from flooding the game, but unfortunately that is something I never got into.
In other words, where is the justification from the game/mechanical side of things for a part two? The graphics are the same. The engine is the same. We saw new content within the first part as well. The only justification that is left is allowing GGG to reset the economy and as a result, earn the same money all over again doing practically the same thing. I don't see how I benefit from that as a player at all. This tastes a lot like Destiny > Destiny 2. Realistically it is just the fact that the game is online and must be 'kept up' that justifies all of those influences on gameplay - none of which really benefit players or are nice on your play time.
Anyway. I guess its my gut feeling coloring my posts here. I could be wrong. Very often, I'm not...
If you know about PoE1, then you should know about PoE2.. and you clearly don't, which means you didn't play PoE1 despite saying you have "500 hours in it" and instead are just complaining about things, especially as the "first post" in the replies... and funnily enough the second poster also complaining too with no knowledge of the game. Modern twitter audience.
Stop it. Life is better when you try to enjoy it.
Diablo 4 was $100 for early access and the game was dogwater.
PoE2 EA is $30 and you get $30 worth of currency to use in the MTX store (across both games), which is 99% cosmetics that don't affect gameplay in any meaningful way, and the game is great with an extended and competent endgame (something D4 lacked), which follows GGG's 12 year track record with PoE1.
I don't see any reason to further pick apart your replies and comment on individual things that are either factually wrong or subjectively misguided.
I'm here to collect info on this "security flaw", which I've yet to find any concrete evidence on what's happening besides people with lax security getting their accounts broken into. Of course, nobody in the comments has any information either and is just posting about their opinions of the game instead of the topic, no thanks to the first replies people read when they get to the end.
Not sure why you dont like PoE franchise but it is definitely not because of money donation and advantages that you might get from it.That is so true.
I'm playing PoE1 and when PoE2 showed up, instantly bought early access. Love the game and play it whenever have time PoE2, currently in the 2nd act and I like it. I'm still learning it a bit since it has changed a tad from the PoE1.
I didn't spend a dime on anything in the PoE1 so I'm good the way it is. Although, I would use some of the items I got in PoE1 though. Damn, it would make things simpler when playing now :)
on the other hand you should expect a wipe for full release. it is an mmo after all, I played Rift beta and even that far back they wiped for launch. So I;d consider this a paid Beta rather than an actual EA.
I got instantly hooked just like with Grim Dawn. I have checked a lot of games like this and nothing. With this one is different. I'm really puzzled, why you dont like the game. It is really great the further you go in the game the better it gets. I only wish I had more time to spend playing it.Dude try it. It is great. I like the kinda new style of fighting. You can slowly move while still use spells (wizard) which is quite a game changer for me. I hope this one will stay.I agree with this completely. It is quite different. There is some strategy required here and there not just run like a madman through the map to another location. Some things gave me a hard time. The bosses are quite nice but yet I'm at the beginning of the game.
Edit: There's several youtube videos by well known creators that have gone over this, nearly all (if not all) affected users were using this addon and you can see that by looking up "poe2 hack" on youtube, I'd post some of the videos but there's too many at this point.