Skip to main content

Beware: popular GTA V mods installing malware on users’ PCs

GTA Whale MOD
Sure, Grand Theft Auto V is plenty of fun on its own, but once you’ve mastered everything, what’s the next frontier? If you’re playing the game on the PC, the answer is simple: install a few mods. Be careful what you click though, as some gamers have found out the hard way that some mods are being used to infect users’ PCs.

It all started when a user on the site GTAForums noticed some strange activity when running a routine check of what processes were running on their computer. Eventually the user tracked down the suspicious activity to Fade.exe, which had hijacked another file and was using it to connect to the Internet.

More investigation and a Malwarebytes scan revealed that the program in question was actually a keylogger. The culprit turned out to be the popular GTA V mod Angry Planes, which spawns, well, angry planes that incessantly hunt down the player.

To double check, the user removed Fade.exe and the other files that it spawned while running, then loaded up GTA V with the Angry Planes mod and watched as the process once again popped into existence. Other users quickly began to do their own testing and confirmed the mod did indeed contain the malware.

Users also identified another mod, No Clip, that had been installing the same malware. In response, popular site GTA5-Mods.com plans to “beef up the approval process on these kinds of scripts.”

“If you post compiled scripts in .asi, .dll, or .net.dll formats, the approval process will be much lengthier,” a post on the site explains. “We recommend avoiding these formats completely and publishing your mods as .lua or .cs source files, these kinds of scripts will be approved very quickly because the source can be verified.”

For more information on how to check if your system is infected, see the post on GTAForums. In the meantime, you may want to be extra careful when installing mods, whether for Grand Theft Auto V or other games.

Editors' Recommendations

Kris Wouk
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…
Grand Theft Auto 3 cheat codes: all weapons, money, cars, and more
grand theft auto 3 cheat codes

The Grand Theft Auto series is one of the most influential in all of gaming. The game design, specifically starting with Grand Theft Auto 3, sent ripples not only through how other games were made but even pop culture at large. Even though this was technically the third game in the series, it was such a massive departure that it almost stands as the true beginning for what this open-world crime series would become. Now, thanks to the Grand Theft Auto 3 -- Definitive Edition being released stand-alone or as part of a package, we can relive those early days with a fresh coat of paint and more modern controls.

While the plot and story missions are plenty fun even in this early game, we all know most of the fun in a GTA title comes from messing around in the open world. The level of chaos and interactions you can create is a little limited now, but still worth hours of fun. Anyone who played this game back in the day will tell you, though, that it was the cheats that turned a fun game into a never-ending riot of excitement. Not all the old cheats have come back, unfortunately, so if your memory is a little hazy, there's no need to worry. Here's a full list of all the cheats in Grand Theft Auto 3 -- Definitive Edition and how to activate them on each system.

Read more
Rockstar Games hacker reportedly arrested following GTA 6 leak
Lester plans a heist in GTA V key art.

Last weekend, someone hacked Rockstar Games and leaked over 90 videos of the still-in-development Grand Theft Auto 6. Now, the City of London Police in the United Kingdom reportedly arrested the 17-year-old individual responsible for the hack.

BBC and the City of London Police's Twitter account confirmed the arrest took place in Oxfordshire earlier today. The official statement only says that this 17-year-old individual was arrested "on suspicion of hacking, as part of an investigation supported by the NCA UK's National Cyber Crime Unit," but journalist Matthew Keys reports that this is the person who leaked Grand Theft Auto 6 after they hacked Rockstar Games (and possibly hacked Uber as well). 

Read more
Grand Theft Auto 6 will reportedly feature the series’ first female protagonist
Stylized character art for GTA V.

The highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 will reportedly include a Latina protagonist who will be one of two leading characters in the upcoming game. If accurate, this will mark the first entry with a playable woman as the lead role. The decision coincides with Rockstar's internal push to improve workplace practices and culture, with less required overtime and improvements to the company's gender gap.

This comes by way of a Bloomberg report, citing people familiar with the game's development. The outlet spoke with over 20 current and former Rockstar employees, who mostly consider the company's recent changes to be positive, leading to an improvement in morale, overall.

Read more