The on-going hacking situation is bound to be giving someone at Rockstar major headaches, as never before has the GTA Online community been this riled up about something. The hacking problem itself has branched out into issues arising around Support, as well as certain elements in the community attempting to sew misdirection among the players.
In case you were living under a rock these past days, this whole debacle started when a new hack popped up in GTA Online enabled hackers to steal cash from players by duping the game into thinking that the victim was repeatedly killing the hacker while in passive mode, thus charging them for the hospital bills. Thing is, the price of the bills is jacked way up as part of the hack, draining player accounts in moments.
Naturally, such a hack being used in the game kicked up a major storm, seeing as the acquisition of money in GTA Online is a notoriously lengthy process, plus for players who bought Shark Cards, this hack could effectively rob them of real money. Money is king in GTA Online, and right now, it has been usurped.
The only other time something like this happened in the game's history was when the insurance fraud hack popped up, however that was swiftly fixed and not too widespread even while it was a threat. The passive mode hack, however, has spread like wildfire and so far not even a temporary fix has been established.
The situation's effect on the community is also more noticeable. This is because the community itself is larger and more vocal than it was at the time of the insurance fraud hack, and also due to the volatility of the issue. Players are discovering — usually the hard way — various aspects of the hack that weren't immediately obvious, such as it being a threat even when you think you're alone in a public lobby.
And then the spread of misinformation certainly does not help things along. Players circulated a screenshot, which has now been revealed as a fake, which indicated that Rockstar rolled out a new system which separated Shark Card balances from the rest of player money in an attempt to protect it from the hack, thus at the very least taking real monetary damage out of the equation.
While such a system would, in essence, be a simple first step to protecting players (and a logical one at that), it had a mixed response. While many realized that this was a quick way to reduce the carnage as quickly as possible while an all-inclusive fix was being cooked up, others took it as Rockstar only protecting those who pay for their in-game cash. This is an unfortunate side effect of the vocal hostility many players profess against the microtransaction system.










