'Counter-Strike 2' Players Warned Not to Play; Security Flaw Exposes IP, Risks PC Control

As “Counter-Strike 2” grows in popularity, gamers have identified yet another flaw in the Valve shooter's backend software. According to various reports on X (previously Twitter) and Reddit, gamers may supposedly change CS2's code to access everyone in their lobby's IP addresses and perhaps alter code on their PCs.

‘Counter-Strike 2’ Players Warned Not To Play Due to a Major Security Concern

“Counter-Strike 2” is undoubtedly having a difficult time right now, PCGames reported. With a recent update mistakenly triggering a series of apparently random VAC bans and the shooter's player count plunging to its lowest of the year, Valve's popular FPS game has many of us nostalgic for the good old days of “CS:GO.”

The worst, however, appears to be yet to come. A new weakness in the game's software, discovered by Reddit user TryingToBeReallyCool, allows players to access the IP addresses of others in their lobby and, supposedly, "execute code on [their] machine."

TryingToBeReallyCool says in the Reddit post, "I won't go into details, but there is a back door that allows other players in your lobby to execute code on your machine. I managed to find instructions after not too hard a search, and it’s super easy to pull off. I wouldn’t play the game for the next day or two until this gets patched; it looks both legit and very serious. Your machine could genuinely be at risk if attacked by this.”

CS2 content maker “Ozzny” has also posted a series of photos in which they claim to have collected the IP addresses of the players in their lobby using an IP logger. This attitude is shared by CS2 skin trader “coco,” as well as Twitch broadcaster “PirateSoftware,” who describes themselves as "a cybersecurity expert" and "a hacker" with 20 years of expertise.

PirateSoftware says in a video that he "wouldn't play CS right now," claiming that players are "100% vulnerable to [the exploit] until [Valve] fixes it... This is incredibly easy to pull off, and you don't want this." He goes on to call the exploit "very serious," and warns that its rapid spread on the internet will leave the game in jeopardy. Valve has not yet commented on this issue.

‘Counter-Strike 2’ Player Count in December 2023 Revealed

Despite succeeding one of Counter-Strike's most successful versions, CS2 opened the path for the franchise to see some of its highest concurrent player counts following its debut. “Counter-Strike 2” introduces a slew of new features, including the Premier mode and the new Source 2 engine.

While the primary gameplay remains focused on planting or defusing the bomb, the number of rounds in matches has been reduced from a maximum of 15 to 12 for each half.

“Counter-Strike 2 has seen a daily average of 722,550 players during the previous 30 days, according to SteamCharts. As with other titles, there is a modest reduction in CS2's daily active gamers following the game's release.

In the previous 30 days, the greatest player count in CS2 was 1,204,943. Furthermore, when the game was still in beta, “Counter-Strike 2” peaked at 1,802,853 concurrent players in April 2023. Since August 2022, the game has had over a million peak players per month.

As a result, “Counter-Strike 2” now has the most concurrent players on Steam, with 425,963 average concurrent players in December 2023, surpassing “Dota 2.”

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