ScooByer Trade

To anyone who owns this game, becareful, someone is sending a virus around and completly shuts down your computer and disables it rendering it useless.So stay offline.

Nathan.

jods

Get an XBOX360

ScooByer Trade

Nah to be honest, i like GT5 Prologue so not an XBox for me.

Hanslow

What's your source? Not heard of a virus on a console before..... intriguing...

CupraDave

iTrader: (1)

have you been affected by this or is it a roumor? is there any proof this is happening, I play online and have not heard of this

would like to know more

ScooByer Trade

No i have not had a problem with it i only played twice and only for about 10 minutes.Some people have said COD3 does it too so have a read through of all the posts.Also some where restarted can play other games and dvd's and is ok only to put them two games in and causes problems.It is not just the odd 1 or three though which is a worry. Sorry here is the thread

GameSpot Forums - PlayStation 3 - Is Call Of Duty making anyones system SHUT DOWN COMPLETELY??

ScooByer Trade

Well think about it guys, it is wired up to the www now isn't it and there is no Norton Antivirus etc to protect it only a firewall i suppose.

Geezer

Only one person in that thread mentions a virus

How would it get on?

It's just coincidence

Geezer

ScooByer Trade

Some people have said the console is at fault or bugs in the disks, poor ventilation and as you say one person said a virus.Thing is though that shut off problem has happened when other people went online.Also they have shut off during loading and installing the games.

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

The console does not boot from its hard drive nor from any writable data source meaning a virus would only be a temp thing if at all.

Worst case this would cause your hard drive to need wiping ..

StickyMicky

lol @ virus on a console

had a look at the thread quickly and saw posts about red lights? and sony sending out shipping labels, and i started chucking to myself.

that is some funny **** LOL

PeteBrant

Of course its not a ****ing virus.


Jesus

Iain Young

With the platform being based on an open source platform, it should be possible to write something that would affect the firmware of the machine. So, talks of a virus aren't as silly as they sound, (although probably unlikely in this case).

ChefDude

Iain's right - if you can boot it up and write to the firmware, then you can hack it.

If i was still 'coding', I would target large connected networks like ps3s online as a vehicle for code distribution

PeteBrant

It is very, very silly.

PeteBrant

Of course you can hack the firmware, same goes for any console - But how, exactly, are you going to distribute a virus?

Iain Young

I'm sure there's a way. For example, write a client which emulates the COD4 matchmaking system, and get it to transmit nasty code to other connected machines. Should be possible to do, (after all most of the technique has already been done on the PSP to allow firmware hacks using save game files etc).

Not so easy to do on the 360 because of the closed nature of the operating system and the live network. But, the PS3 is open source, and the PSN is easy to hack (from what I've read), so the potential is there if someone wants to exploit it

JackClark

Possible, yes. Plausible no.

Iain Young

If it is possible, then it is plausible. There is always somebody out there who will try something like this (after all, that's why there are viruses). Unless just sticking your head in the sand will make it all go away of course

PeteBrant

So just to be clear. Someone would have to upload a firmware upgrade to your machine (which, presumably you will just sit and allow to happen), via the COD4 matchmaking server (which presumably will also have to be hacked).

Open or closed system makes no difference, How many PC games have had virus spread in-game?

In fact, can anyone give me an example of a virus being spread in game to any system at all ever?

No?

Thought not.

But for some reason it's plausible and possible on PS3

Iain Young

It's not PS3 exclusive. It's possible on any system which is open to the world at large. I do remember this happening on the PC a couple of years ago, but I can't remember the name of the game off the top of my head, (I'll do a bit of digging to see if I can jog my memory but I've an idea it might have been an mmorpg). It's just a case of finding security holes in the servers and exploiting those holes to transmit malicious code.

StickyMicky

my mates copy of mortal kombat for his amiga came with a virus in it

Dream Weaver

Not as daft as it sounds, my PS3 has some sort of virus/spyware on it and I've had to stop using the browser on it now

The browser has been hacked somehow so that Google searches throw up genuine looking links, but when you click them you get taken to **** and gambling sites - not sure how as I only used the PS3 for browsing the forums I use, plus Youtube, Pistonheads etc!!

I had this on a laptop as well but it was easy enough to sort on that, I've no idea how to sort it on the PS3