Can you get viruses or hacked by playing online games like CS?

[LirvA]

I'm new to online gaming and CS and was curious if you can get hacked or infected with malware by playing on public servers or anything like that.

Mr.Bob, what's the story morning glory?

[tjjansen2]

I'm no expert, but I've heard that as long as you have even halfway decent virus protection, you'll be fine.

[Mr.Bob]

The only thing you can do is pre-download maps and files cuz those can be virused, but can a individual send a virus to you thru the game, no.

[LirvA]

what do you mean by this?

"The only thing you can do is pre-download maps and files cuz those can be virused,"

can you please elaborate on that?



You mean if I went to a site like "freecounterstrikemaps" .com and downloaded "map3" it could potentially be a virus if the web site is shady?

[Aadil.Aijaz]

you can download maps from Maps.Counter-Strike.com - Counter-Strike Maps for 1.6, Source and Condition Zero.
the basic objective is to overwrite those map files installed in your PC as those files could possibly have viruses

[Gunsndwarfs]

Originally Posted by LirvA

I'm new to online gaming and CS and was curious if you can get hacked or infected with malware by playing on public servers or anything like that.

Mr.Bob, what's the story morning glory?

as long as you don't hack there'll be no problem dude, since most hacks aren't hacks they are just viruses to hack your Counterstirke account so don't do hack it'll hopefully ruin your counterstrike account and get you hated by everyone in teh whole frikkin cs world

[Heidymus]

Originally Posted by LirvA

what do you mean by this?

"The only thing you can do is pre-download maps and files cuz those can be virused,"

can you please elaborate on that?



You mean if I went to a site like "freecounterstrikemaps" .com and downloaded "map3" it could potentially be a virus if the web site is shady?

It means that people have the ability of putting whatever they want in files and then upload it to their server then when you're downloading a file that is supposedly a "map" from their server, you get screwed by it.

What he suggested you can do is that you can go to a good website where you can pre-download the maps and put it in your Steam map file so your computer is not forced to download a file from the server which may contain a virus. Of course, this also applies to the crappy websites so don't just go to a random site to download files.

Most people are not malicious enough to put a virus in place of a map so that their regulars can get the virus. After buying a server, I think their goal is to have it be popular, not screw up people's computers.

Also, most anti-virus software *should* be able to stop it either way.

I hope that answered your question.