Hackers have long targeted Roblox accounts to steal a player\u2019s valuable items, which can sometimes be worth many tens of thousands of very real dollars. But that wasn\u2019t enough for some. Now, hackers are taking over Roblox developer accounts and stealing ownership of entire video games and digital worlds.Multiple Roblox developers\u2014that is, people who make games for others to play on the Roblox platform, and sometimes make their livelihood doing so\u2014told 404 Media about this happening to them. In multiple cases, the developers said Roblox support did not help them get their games back until 404 Media contacted Roblox for comment.Ioannis Matziaris said his two 20-year-old sons spent five years building a game called \u201cThe Shadow Network\u201d with more than 12,000 members. In April, someone approached Christos, one of the sons, with a job offer and convinced him to run a particular file. It was actually malware.\u201cWithin hours, they had taken ownership of our entire Roblox group, transferred our main game to a new group they created, and stolen our Robux,\u201d Matziaris said. He said the family contacted Roblox support and filed a DMCA takedown request with Roblox and got no response.\u00a0\ud83d\udca1Do you know anything else about hacking on Roblox? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.\u201cThis isn’t just beaming,\u201d Matziaris said, referring to when hackers \u201cbeam\u201d or hack a victim to steal their items. \u201cThis is an organized group that steals games, republishes them, and recruits unsuspecting developers to build on stolen work.\u201dRoblox is much more than a game to many people; it is a business. While Roblox the company maintains the Roblox platform itself, essentially anyone can make a game built on top of it. Some of these games go massively viral, like Grow a Garden, which isn\u2019t just a massively popular Roblox game but a huge video game in its own right. In turn, developers of these games monetize their creations with in-game transactions. Some Roblox developers make millions of dollars and open dedicated studios.\u00a0It\u2019s not entirely clear what the hackers planned to do with the games, be that just steal the Robux or try to monetize their popularity. But you can see why a hacker might want to commandeer a game for themselves. Matziaris said that after the hack, Roblox denied the family\u2019s claim over the game because \u201cthere is no indication that group ownership was transferred due to your account being compromised.\u201d\u00a0When 404 Media contacted Roblox for comment, the company changed its stance. \u201cWe were troubled to hear of this specific incident and have restored the game to its owner,\u201d the company said in a statement. Roblox added it has \u201cseveral safety mechanisms in place, including Enhanced Protection, the most secure version of 2-step verification, which is designed to eliminate \u2018point-of-authentication\u2019 attacks like phishing and credential stuffing. Account Session Protection is also enabled by default for all users and helps secure web sessions by binding them to a specific device. Unfortunately none of these methods can completely eliminate the risk of account theft, particularly when bad actors convince users to run malicious software on their own devices or execute untrusted code. We continue to work on new ways to prevent these occurrences and actively encourage users to follow security best practices, including not clicking on links or downloading anything from unknown senders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matziaris\u2019s family is not the only person impacted. Mohamed Kaparoza, another developer, told 404 Media he was hacked \u201cafter I was contacted through Discord by individuals claiming they wanted to hire me as a project manager for their game. During the conversation, they asked me to install a Python package called \u2018robase,\u2019 which they described as part of their database\/project tools.\u201d\u201cShortly after installing it, I was logged out of my Roblox account on both my PC and Phone. I also noticed my Discord account was compromised around the same time. Afterwards, my 2-step verification and passkey were changed without my permission, and my game\/group were transferred to another user. I never received any notification about a login from a new location or device before this happened,\u201d he added. Kaparoza said Roblox has not returned his game.Jovan Rai, another developer, said they were also offered a project manager role and asked to run a file. Ironically, this time the attackers presented themselves as Cheesy Studios and working on the game The Shadow Network, which belongs to the Matziaris brothers. The hackers stole ownership of Rai\u2019s game, called Overcoding Overseers.\u00a0\u201cThe game was generating ~10,000 Robux daily, had reached 1,100 concurrent users, and was my primary, only source of income. I am a minor, a 15-year-old Canadian who made this game independently,\u201d Rai said.Rai told 404 Media he had been \u201cfighting\u201d Roblox support for more than 30 days. Roblox only restored his game after 404 Media contacted Roblox for comment.When 404 Media relayed details of Kaparoza and Rai\u2019s cases, Roblox said in a statement \u201cThe Roblox support team investigates all claims and restores ownership if they can validate it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"