TFAR Code Execution Author: Lystic Categories: ArmA 3 Everyone who has played Arma for an extended period has come across TFAR, Task Force Arrowhead Radio. I am not going to go into how the mod works, you can check it out here. I am going to dive directly into the code that drives TFAR, and do my best at explaining a type of […]

Lazy Eval Execution Exploit Author: Lystic Categories: ArmA 3 Recently I have been interacting directly with some guys at Bohemia Interactive. With the latest update, BIS_fnc_parseNumberSafe hasn’t been as safe as it should have been. A few great discussions later and I am hopeful that the guys at BI have it right this time, finally patching that multi-year vulnerability. During our back and forth, […]

Arma 3 “Old Man” SQF Execution Exploit Author: Lystic Categories: ArmA 3 With the “Old Man” update out now, I decided to take another look at the Functions and UI scripts to see what fixes they implemented, and to look for a new exploit for SQF execution. To my surprise, I was greeted with BIS_fnc_parseNumberSafe. This neat little function is a “fix” for their previously broken BIS_fnc_parseNumber. […]

Pre-Connection Remote Execution Author: Lystic Categories: ArmA 3 I have covered remote execution in the past. Everyone by now knows that any remote execution cheat is brutal to the security of game servers in Arma. The developers have made strides to block unlogged and unfiltered remote execution, and they have come a long way since Arma 3 Alpha. This post covers an exploit […]

Breaking the SQF Firewall Author: Lystic Categories: ArmA 3 One of the least discussed issues with the Arma 3 Engine, Real Virtuality 4, is the Engine & the Developer’s inability to protect game servers from its own scripting language. For the last 3+ years, I have been abusing the scripting language & its intricacies to execute SQF code wherever and whenever I want. For […]

Owning Tarkov’s Marketplace Author: Lystic Categories: C# Escape From Tarkov is a first-person shooter in its alpha stage of development. It has an in-game economy with unique characteristics that help drive a very stable in-game marketplace. The marketplace allows players to buy and sell items they find while in game. Item prices each have a stable supply and demand which drives the market […]

SQF Genetic Algorithm Author: Lystic Categories: ArmA 3 Oh yeah, it is time. So I have been looking into machine learning and decided I should dive head first into genetic algorithms. The concept was easy enough for me to wrap my head around. As a prefix, this SQF code was based on a python script written by Joeseph Misiti. The source code for that […]

Overriding the Official Server List in ArmA 3 Author: Lystic Categories: ArmA 3 There is a little-used feature in the ArmA 3 Multiplayer Server list that shows all of their “Official” servers. Currently, there are ~100 players on the official servers. These host games from Endgame to Zues. Stokes figured out how to override this list with the official servers for our mods. It involves a hack-ish way […]

extDB2 Exploit And Why You Should Use SQL_CUSTOM_V2 Author: Lystic Categories: ArmA 3 If you run a Life Server you probably use extDB2. It is a wonderfully optimized and amazingly useful plugin used for Database connectivity. The problem with many life servers is they use SQL_RAW (mode 2), which take a string from SQF and executes it in the mySQL database. This inherently opens a security vulnerability on […]