Steam game disables mods after facing its second Workshop malware outbreak this year

Steam game disables mods after facing its second Workshop malware outbreak this year A self-replicating virus is once again wreaking havoc on People Playground. What happened - On September 22, Studio Minus—the developer of ragdoll torture sandbox People Playground—posted a Steam news update saying it had disabled the game's Steam Workshop support "due to yet another malicious mod," which the developer said was "especially bad" - The developer has since released a new build of People Playground that prevents mods from running, saying on its Discord that Workshop and mod support will only return if "mods are fundamentally safe to run," which "might never happen" - A redditor who inspected the malicious Workshop mod claims the mod hijacks the user's Steam account to republish itself on the Workshop along with the user's personal information, destroys files for People Playground and other installed Steam games, and sends slurs to the user's Steam friends - Despite initially claiming that the infected mod "does not steal passwords" or other credentials, Studio Minus is urging People Playground users to change their Discord passwords as soon as possible, as well as "the passwords of all your important accounts" - This is People Playground's second Workshop malware incident this year: Studio Minus previously disabled the game's Workshop after a similar outbreak of self-replicating malware in February At this point, you're playing People Playground at your own risk And Studio Minus seems to agree. In a blog post from last month, zooi—People Playground's primary developer—called the game a "technical hellscape," which makes it "technically impossible to properly sandbox mods in their current state." While the studio claims that the software has measures in place to prevent malicious mod activity, zooi called it a "hopeless arms race." When a studio's developer doesn't seem confident about the viability of their project's security measures, you shouldn't either. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.