Hacked Or A Coincidence Has Me Worried

At roughly 19:30 yesterday I was on the PCG TF2 server. This is a VAC secured server and for the first time ever I came across a hacker using speed cheats.

For the few minutes he was in there he began changing his name to other players to avoid being kicked, including mine at one point. Out of a duality of boredom of the game being wrecked and more importantly fear for what would happen if I stayed on the server with the hacker I immediately left as soon as I finished taking some screenshots.

When I then quit TF2 I was greeted with not one, but two HL2.EXE error messages. Firstly, HL2.EXE has never crashed on this machine. I know it's a regular occurence for a lot of people, as it was for me on my old machines, but this alone had me worried. Then within a few seconds or maybe even less 2 more serious error messages appeared telling me to read some files located in the appdata\local\temp folder. I have never seen an error like this.

After having heard horror stories about people being banned after just meeting hackers on servers, I want to know if I should be worried now too. My steam account is extremelly valuable to me and so obviously is my capability to play on VAC servers.

Thanks for reading.

[~SW]

You have nothing to worry about. Hackers cannot download hacks to your computer just by being in the server with them.

[bejayel]

Those horror stories are rubbish. People who hack get caught and then banned. When they realize they are out $60 (or more depending on your hack) because they were stupid, they turn around to the forums to try to lie their way out of a ban.

You cannot be banned for running in to a cheater. Similarly, VAC and PB both work off of a "hidden" unique id that is generated for your account. VAC will never ban by your name alone, it uses your steam ID. Any cheater that claims otherwise is a liar.

It still worries me greatly. This has never happened before and I find it a significant coincidence that errors like this happen the day I meet a hacker.

The fact that something has happened whiles the game was running is what worries me the most.

[Nova Prospekt]

You're completely fine.Paranoia is inevitable, but believe me you have nothing to be worried about.The cheater will soon be banned by VAC, and even if he changes his name Gaben, VAc will track his steam id, regardless of the profile name.

As for the HL2.exe error, it is common.What you should do is verify the integrity of your games, all of them.That should probably solve it.

It's just a coincidence, the moment i switched on my PC once, my laptop crashed.Doesnt mean that using the pc was the cause.

[Hedy Lamarr]

Originally Posted by Enraged

At roughly 19:30 yesterday I was on the PCG TF2 server. This is a VAC secured server and for the first time ever I came across a hacker using speed cheats.

For the few minutes he was in there he began changing his name to other players to avoid being kicked, including mine at one point.

Yup. Apparently this is a new cheat. It rapidly changes names to others on the server every ten seconds, and has speed hacks and aimbots built in. A truly nasty little cheat. I've encountered these kids twice the last week, and just like you one of them was using my name.

The HL2.exe crash was unrelated to the cheat, and like the other posters said, bans are based off of unique IDs.

Plus (I'm not sure on this) but I don't think the proper Internet protocols are in place to allow a game server to download .dlls or .exes to your machine.

[Rdemption]

The name changing is to confuse server admins. VAC uses the unique steamID to ban players.

[ICantShoot]

Changing name rapidly is a cheat feature. It is to fool admin to avoid banning and in some cases, can cause crashes if the cheater also inputs certain commands that can cause client crashes. Currently i am not aware of any (previous have been patched by Valve).

Ok, I think I should add I'm well aware that the cheat system works by the steamID and that they change names to avoid server bans, I was just bringing it up as a 'thing' that happened.

Thanks for the headsup though on the other information. You have drastically reduced my worrying. Thanks again. ^^

[Chuckle-Nuts]

Yeah, like everyone said, you're fine. VAC uses IDs to ban, not player names. I assume the name thing is to confuse admins into banning innocents. Also, I'm sure the crashes are unrelated to this.

[quickanddead]

if vac ban by names,half of steam users would be banned lol really,try with Robin,you will see how many names..
also hackers cannot download cheats to your computer
also there is no un-just bans,there is 2 possible option:
1.your account got stolen and that person who stole it played with cheats
2.you cheated but you dont want to admit
p.s.vac also look for memory editors that can be used for cheating,programs like vdownloader,daemon tools,ccleaner is safe

[MagicPickle]

having HL2.exe crash everytime I close any hl2 related game, has been happening since I first bought Half Life 2, so imo thats nothing to worry about, no clue why it happens :c

Originally Posted by MagicPickle

having HL2.exe crash everytime I close any hl2 related game, has been happening since I first bought Half Life 2, so imo thats nothing to worry about, no clue why it happens :c

Did you try to fully reinstall all HL2 engine games? Full reinstall means, uninstall and removing folders which were left behind.

[ICantShoot]

Originally Posted by Cp6uja_

Did you try to fully reinstall all HL2 engine games? Full reinstall means, uninstall and removing folders which were left behind.

With Steam, that's pointless. Just verifying the files integrity throug steam (right click on game at steam, select properties, local files and verify integrity of game cache and defragment cache files.) is the same thing as re-install. Takes less time and is less annoying.

Verifying files fixed the hl2.exe crash on game shutdown for me (TF2) while back.

[jackpf]

Originally Posted by ICantShoot

With Steam, that's pointless. Just verifying the files integrity throug steam (right click on game at steam, select properties, local files and verify integrity of game cache and defragment cache files.) is the same thing as re-install. Takes less time and is less annoying.

Not really, since it only verifies them with the contents of the .vdf from what I'm to understand. So if your vdf didn't download properly/is corrupted then you'll need to redownload/reinstall.