Malware Potentials in Steamwebhelper.exe

[Warrenheil]

Day of Defeat 2: Source, as you well know, uses hl2.exe

It places advertising on the intermediate page when connecting
to an edge-gamer server (if you are not a Dedicated Supporter) .

HL2.exe makes use of a native windows component, called a
"Web Interface", which is basically a generic HTML component, used
to display HTML pages.

Instead of accessing this component directly, it runs a secondary
application called "Steamwebhelper.exe".

you may notice this program running in the background, as when
connecting to an eGO server, i've seen it instantiate up to 50 of these
processes at once. drastically effecting lag time for a few minutes.
they are all designed so that they will close automatically on their own.

if they don't, you're able to type !motd (press ok)
and they are, in theory, its supposed to close all of these connections.

I just thought people should be informed of the potential risks that
this could potentially cause. Especially considering its using an IE
interface, which has been touted for years for being insecure. granted
i'm sure its improved, i think there's always been a running risk in
this particular component.

i was just kind of curious, what kind of screening process is done,
when we select the ads for our website... i am surmising that this is
going through an advertising agency.

I know i've posted about this before, but it seemed like it was just
emphasized that i should become a dedicated supporter if i didn't
want to be bombarded with ads. lol

Well, I still wanted to express my concern on this matter, not even
in the affiliation of edge-gamers, but just visiting other servers.... the
people who run the servers, may not have the most honest intentions
in mind.... and may try to take advantage of this possible security flaw.

Earlier today, my firewall detected a "Code Injection" when viewing
the intermediate screen (where ads are displayed). So although, this
could have easily been just a false positive... i think its important
to emphasize, the potential is there.

I throw this out there, so that perhaps some users out there,
might be able to help protect themselves from these threats.

while you're playing your game, someone else might be playing
a different game.

 

[Ric]

thats pretty interesting.

sometimes eGO has nasty ads, but they're usually pretty quick on getting rid of them.

a long time ago, i don't remember exactly what happened, but Russians ****ed up our forums and every time something displayed, my AVS would go off saying something from Russia is trying to download something when I visited eGO forums.

i remember the forums being locked down all day while they cleaned it up.

 

[Simon]

thats pretty interesting.

sometimes eGO has nasty ads, but they're usually pretty quick on getting rid of them.

a long time ago, i don't remember exactly what happened, but Russians ****ed up our forums and every time something displayed, my AVS would go off saying something from Russia is trying to download something when I visited eGO forums.

i remember the forums being locked down all day while they cleaned it up.

I've had one or two issues with ads over the years as well, a quick drop box post and it was usually fixed same day or next. Leadership is usually very quick to get things fixed with our advertisements. As long as you provide images and all the relevant info.