Among Us has security issues: how scammers take advantage of it

Between us and the cheaters

One of the games of the moment is without a doubt Between us. This title, which is not new, but which has recently achieved great popularity among players around the world, is causing a stir. The problem is that it could quickly go by the wayside if its developers are unable to fix the different safety issues that have been found.

Let’s go in parts and start from the beginning. In the past couple of months, there have been many players who have complained about a proliferation of cheaters ruining the gaming experience. Additionally, you may also have noticed yourself that there are games where weird things happen for no apparent reason or explanation.

Well, it is true the number of cheaters within Among Us is increasing. Due to the game’s popularity, there are those who have dug into the bowels of its code. Some with the intention of modifying and removing certain restrictions, while others directly to see how to exploit potential vulnerabilities to gain an advantage in games.

In that first case, in that of users trying to remove some limitations, there was James Sebree. This researcher from security company Tenable posted a Medium post on hacking between the United States. In it he tells how he initially only intended to see if he could remove the maximum of 10 players from each match. The problem is that when you started looking at the code you noticed that there was something else.

Without going into technical details that risk escaping the knowledge of many, Sebree managed to find a way to practically play the game for him. I mean, these security flaws allowed things that were so crazy and bad that they ruined the basic mechanics of the game. For example, he could handle other characters, kill them at will, teleport around the ship, go through walls, move faster than others, or get items without paying for them among other actions.

After reading Sebree’s article, you understand much better why the number of cheaters has been growing rapidly for a few weeks. Because these bugs practically allow you to do what you want and when you want within the game. It is true that some of these bugs appear to have been fixed by their developer, but they have put the title under control.

The future of Among Us: improving your server

From what James Sebree comments, the big problem with Among Us is or appears to be on your server which is unable to validate the information sent by each player’s game client. Therefore, with “small and simple” applications, they can be induced to obtain that advantage over the others.

Is this a problem for the future of Among Us? Yes and very big, because if large titles suffer from problems of this type and despite a large amount of resources lose players, Innersloth’s game could be directly forgotten by all those looking for public games and not just with friends.

The good part is that it looks like that Innersloth is working on each of these problems. At the moment it seems that some have already been fixed and have stopped allowing cheats to roam freely. Hopefully they can tackle the rest and Among Us continues to be for many an escape from the daily grind and a place where they can spend time having fun with friends or other players.

Otherwise, its developer should not be punished for these security flaws. After all, popularity has come to them all of a sudden and being a small company it is very difficult to manage that excessive growth and “hunger” of many when something becomes popular to see how they can take advantage of the smallest detail in their favor.