A couple of years ago, From Software had to take the Dark Souls games offline for months due to the discovery of a Remote Code Execution bug, enabling a hacker to access a user's system by exploiting the game's multiplayer connection. Now, this same severe vulnerability has been discovered in one of 2025's most popular multiplayer titles – Marvel Rivals.
If you are a Marvel Rivals player, you may want to steer clear for a bit, as a new remote code execution bug has been discovered. Remote Code Execution (RCE) allows someone to remotely activate code on a device, enabling the spread of malware from afar. According to security researcher, Shalzuth, an RCE exploit is currently present in Marvel Rivals.
The exploit lies in the Marvel Rivals hotfix patching system. This allows the developers to quickly push out hotfixes to millions of users, but the team has not taken the extra security step of verifying where the code is coming from. With that in mind, a hacker could weaponize the patching system to spread malware. As Marvel Rivals requires Admin Privileges on PC for the sake of anti-cheat, this makes the RCE bug all the more dangerous for PC users, but it can also be used to break into PS5 consoles.
When From Software became aware of the RCE bug in Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3, it took those games offline for months while it worked on a solution. It is unclear if Marvel Rivals will face any downtime in order to add extra security measures to protect users. The researcher behind this bug discovery wrote further on his blog that he's found critical bugs in other very popular online games but has been ignored by developers. Given that more studios are using kernel-level anti-cheat systems to protect their games from cheaters, they also need to start putting in the extra effort to make sure the player base is also protected from major issues like this.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: No game should create an exploitable backdoor into the player's system. Hopefully the team behind Marvel Rivals becomes aware of this and can make the necessary changes to keep the player base safe.