PvP servers for Dark Souls series taken down following concerns over RCE exploit
All PvP servers for the Dark Souls games have been deactivated after Bandai Namco was made aware of a major exploit that can be performed. This was revealed by Twitch user The_Grim_Sleeper, as they were invaded by another player who then used a remote code execution exploit to open Narrator on the streamer's PC, using speech-to-text to read aloud a troll message. It looks like the "hacker" themselves was not a troll, though; according to The Verge, the person who pulled off the exploit was a concerned player who had discovered the RCE, and had attempted to contact the developers so they could fix it. However, they were reportedly ignored, so the person took to targetting a streamer so that news of the exploit would find its way to news outlets and social media after being showcased happening live.
Following the reports of the exploit and concerns from fans, the Twitter account for Dark Souls announced that the servers for Dark Souls: Prepare to Die, Remastered, 2, and 3 would all be taken down for a short time in order to investigate. This currently only affects the PC versions of the games, and servers for the console ports of the games are still online.
PvP servers for Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls: Remastered have been temporarily deactivated to allow the team to investigate recent reports of an issue with online services.
— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) January 23, 2022
Servers for Dark Souls: PtDE will join them shortly.
We apologize for this inconvenience.