talk: hacking video games (slides+sources)
# My resources
A talk on video game hacking, with:
- a broad introduction on the different game hack techniques
- a deeper dive on the Cheat Engine Memory viewer and debugger tool
- a tour of anti cheat techniques and mitigations.
I created a video game CtF challenge to go along this talk, Flag Quest. Find the binary, writeup and cheat table below.
(I tried to make my writeup one of the most complete written tutorial on Cheat Engine )
- Flag quest bin , Google Drive backup
- Flag quest writeup
- Flag Quest cheat and trainer files
- Game hacking workshop slides
If you want to react on my talk, or point to a missing ressource, find my socials on my homepage . 😀
# Sources
| Type | Author | Source | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Article | Irdeto | Global gaming survey: The Last checkpoint for cheating | Serious statistics on how hurtful to the economy is video game cheat… by the Denuvo anti-cheat provider |
| Video | BeHop | L'iceberg de la triche dans les jeux vidéo | History of cheating scandals in e-sport competitions (nontechnical) |
| Video | Micode, Martin Balch | On a reçu le hacker qui vendait des cheats aux pros | history of hacks for tournament competitors |
| Video | Simon Puech | Ces gars saccagent vos jeux-vidéo | nontechnical presentation of the public paid video game hacks market |
| Video | PabloMK7 | ENLBufferPwn Vulnerability - Mario Kart 7 demonstration | RCE on Nintendo 3DS via Mario Kart lobby. |
| Article | Synacktiv, Thomas Dubier | Exploiting American Conquest | multiplayer pwn via chat messages. |
| Article | Synacktiv, Victor Cutillas , Louis Jacotot | Exploring Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Attack Surface | |
| Video | Laluka | OffenSkill - Dofus & Game Hacking Stories Ft. N0x, it4, Klaoude | French talk about Dofus Game Hacking (Network + RCE) |
| Tool | sinai-dev | UnityExplorer | Hook and Explore Unity objects |
| Tool | oleavr | Frida | Hook methods everywhere |
| Tool | baldurk | RenderDoc | Inspect GPU render pipeline |
| Tool | Microsoft,Mark Russinovich | Procmon | inspect filesystem activity of process |
| Tool | Owasp | Owasp Zap | the better Burp 😉 (at least free) |
| Tool | DarkByte | Cheat Engine | |
| Tool | korcankaraokcu | PINCE | Cheat Engine but for Linux |
| Tool | Enyby | GameGuardian | Cheat Engine but for Android |
| Article | Hacktricks | Hacktricks - CheatEngine | Quick tutorial on CE. |
| Article | Cheat Engine wiki | Cheat Engine Tutorial Guide | wiki with all the docs (+ check forums) |
| Video | Stephen Chapman | How to Use Code Filter in Cheat Engine! [ TUNIC ] | Fantastic channel with complete guide on Cheat Engine |
| Video | Guided Hacking | Ultimate Cheat Engine Beginner Tutorial Part 1 | GH102 | Cheat engine course with great editing |
| Courses | Guided Hacking | Guided Hacking courses | full video game hacking courses: paid (and not cheap 🥲) |
| Chall | Vector35 | Pwn Adventure 3 | Open-world Multiplayer CtF chall |
| Chall | GoogleCTF | Hackceler8 | Mix of game and regular CtF |
| Chall | Root-Me, LordRoke, Stealer, Sengengie | HackerMan | Chall CheatEngine Root-Me (also check the other Unity/Godot challs!) |
| Chall | Tuxlu | Flag Quest | Soon™ |
| Tool | ICSharpCode | ILSpy | C# Decompiler (Unity and Mono games) |
| Tool | Jeremy Pritts | AssetRipper | Asset Rip for unity |
| Article | Unity | IL2CPP Overview | Explanation on Unity's IL2CPP backend |
| tool | GDRETools | gdsdecomp | Godot Decompiler |
| Article | sepTN | Protecting Your Godot Project from Decompilation | detailed guide hindering all decompiling tools. |
| Tool | bearlikelion | Godot Engine PR: Obfuscate the AES encryption key | Good practices to harden your Godot game encryption. |
| Tool | AlSch092 | UltimateAntiCheat | Open source Windows anti-cheat |
| Article | ssno | Reverse Engineering Call Of Duty Anti-Cheat | full reverse of Call of Duty anti-cheat techniques |
| Video | Ombarus | Time Cheating in Video Games : Deep Dive with Godot | Preventing cheaters to revert their system clock to get more daily bonuses. |
| Tool | Kokkoroshinzou | against-cheating-value-plus | Memory values protector in godot |
| Tool | Code Stage | Anti-Cheat Toolkit | Anti-cheat plugin for unity (paid and closed source) |
| Video | Asso HZV, Aurelien Chalot | Du Driver Windows à l'EDR | Explanation on EDR workings, similar to Kernel-level anti-cheats |
| Video | Micode, Martin Bruder | On a découvert le monde fascinant des AI-cheats | Advanced anti-cheat presentation (screen reading and hardware hacks) |