Borderlands 2 hackers “sabotaging characters” on Xbox 360

Borderlands 2 players seem to be leading an uneasy existence. First, they had to deal with that nasty rank reset bug, which deleted badass rank and the perks associated with it across all characters, and now, those playing on Xbox 360 are having to deal with a few unsavory folks. Gearbox has warned Borderlands 2 players on the Gearbox forums of a few individuals who are sabotaging others’ characters through the use of an (obviously) malicious exploit.

“Recently a few users have begun violating the Xbox Live Code of Conduct by using an external application to maliciously disrupt the experience and sabotage characters of legitimate Borderlands 2 players on Xbox 360,” Gearbox community manager Chris Faylor wrote on the Gearbox forums. The studio has submitted a patch that will fix this unnamed exploit to Microsoft, but of course, the certification process for patches can take a couple of weeks. Therefore, there are few things that Gearbox recommends you do in the meantime to avoid having you characters tampered with.

Gearbox says that while we’re waiting for the patch to arrive, gamers should only play in private Xbox Live games with players they know. That way, you can avoid letting any of these malicious players into your game, which seems to be the trigger for the issue. Also remember to always leave your game by selecting the “Save and Quit” option from the menu, and if you happen to bite the dust during play and you’re booted back out to the menu instead of respawning in-game, select “Continue” from the main menu immediately to avoid any unwanted character loss. It’s worth pointing out that this exploit seems to only affect those playing on Xbox 360 and not those playing Borderlands 2 on PC or PS3.

At this point, we’re still not clear on what the issue it is or what it does exactly, but after reading through some of the complaints on the 24-page thread over at the Gearbox forums, we’re positive that you don’t want to find yourself on the wrong end of this exploit. Some players are reporting that their character saves have been wiped entirely, which would not be a pleasant experience for anyone. Have you fallen victim to this exploit, or are your characters still intact?