Rainbow Six Siege is now experiencing a new kind of image-based hack that allows hackers to flood players’ screens with disturbing images, ruining gameplay.
As reported, hackers have discovered a means of delivering custom images directly to other players’ screens in the middle of a match in Rainbow Six Siege, filling a substantial part of the screen. In the most lighthearted instances, players are subjected to a cartoon chicken, but the same method is also being employed to compel graphic pornography and gore, such as images of mutilated bodies, onto players’ screens. The effect is an instantaneous full-screen or near-full-screen shock that can immediately ruin a round of competitive play.
For instance, popular R6 streamer BikiniBodhi‘s screen got covered with Charlie Kirk’s image. Because of that, he definitely faced a competitive disadvantage as his full screen got covered for a few seconds.
This is not the first time Rainbow Six’s ecosystem has been abused to push unwanted images at players. In a previous Uplay messaging exploit, attackers included simple HTML and JavaScript code in messages so that opening the message would replace the entire game window with an external image, often pornographic, until the player closed and re-launched the client. The current spate of image exploits in Siege follows the same pattern: using otherwise innocuous UI or overlay mechanics to push content that players never asked to see in the first place.
For content creators, the risks are greater than just losing a ranked match. A single exploited round of hacked gameplay showing explicit or violent images can result in moderation strikes or bans on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube, even if the streamer has no control over what is being shown. According to reports, players are being deliberately targeted for pornography and extreme gore content, which violates most mainstream streaming terms of service simply by existing.
At present, there appears to be no publicly described solution or timeline from Ubisoft. If you have also faced such occurrences, let us know in the comments below.