Street Fighter V PC update included rootkit, now pulled over malware concerns

Thursday saw the release of an update for Street Fighter V on both PS4 and PC that included several new features, including new character Urien, a versus CPU mode, and stage KOs, or the ability for players to defeat opponents using a level's environment. But those playing the fighting game on PC noticed that they got something extra for their platform: a rootkit that allows any application access to the PC's kernel.

Capcom has said that its intent was to prevent players from hacking the game to cheat and unfairly gain in-game currency. Unfortunately it's resulted in creating a backdoor that gives any malware the opportunity to take control of the PC once it recognizes the vulnerability the SFV update put in place.

The good news is that Capcom quickly recognized the error of its ways and as of today has pushed out a rollback for the update, returning the game to a previous version for the PC but leaving the new content and features in place.

The bad news is that the whole secret rootkit installation has damaged the game's reputation among its already frustrated user community. SFV has been a unique entry in the fighting game series in that Capcom has decided to withhold plenty of extra content, including characters, costumes, and play modes, for DLC that can be purchased with real money. On the other hand, players can still unlock these extra with "Fight Money," the in-game currency, but earning enough to get the content requires a lot of grinding.

It's this situation that has led to players resorting to exploits in order to get enough Fight Money, and in turn prompting Capcom to cross the line with its anti-cheat patch. This, combined with the issues experienced during the first few weeks of SFV's launch, may result in the series losing some of its reputation as the world's best competitive fighting game.

SOURCE The Register, Steam