What did the Recent Security Update Made for Rockstar Games GTA Online ?

Due to the Recent Exploits in the GTA Online the P2C Mod Menu’s have found a way to Corrupt the Ohers Players Data by Remote Access from thier Menu to to other Players Data and this could Potentially Ban your Account and Make your Account to Reset in this Security Update Rockstar Actually Made Unbelivable Changes that Players were Waiting since 12 YEARS But They Just Fixed in this Security Update Really Well!! this Could be

Adding Unlimited Money into your Bank Account

Due to this Legit Players had Faced many Difficuties in playing in open Lobbies and While Joining the Private Lobbies they also Been Breached ,Not only This Modders has got the access to joining the Private Lobbies and Making their Gaming Experience very Bad and Unplayable Safely Because of thier Open IP Address and this resulted a Fall in the Playtime of Online Since 31 Jan and then a Short Security Update on Feb2 Made the Hopes of the Legit Players Come again this Security Update Includes

GTAV’s PC recent patch addressed spoofed RIDs/names and made invite-only lobbies more secure so no more cheaters joining uninvited. Your traffic may now go through relay servers, depending on latency, thus shielding your IP. More info about the this can be Found Here on the GTA Forum Page

Apart from what was stated in the patch notes, the good news are

– Establishing connections or the network handshake now fully goes through R* relay servers in all cases. Before the update, relay servers would be used in some cases where you can’t directly connect to the host.

– Relay servers verify the P2P certificates preventing cheaters from spoofing RIDs.

– From what I’ve noticed, IPs of other players aren’t leaked within the memory. I could be wrong ofc.

– Invite only lobbies are secure now as stated before.

The bad news

– No proper fix yet for affected corrupted accounts.

– While establishing the connection goes through relay servers, not all connections are routed through relay servers. Direct connections are still maintained revealing public IP Addresses.

Relay servers isn’t a new concept. They have been used as far as 2015/2016. Interfering when a connection isn’t able to be established directly. But are now used for establishing connections regardless.

~~IPs are, unfortunately, not “shielded”~~ (Most IPs are shielded, but some are leaked) and mod menus are extra steps away from retrieving and showing IP Addresses.

Routing all traffic through relay servers may lead to an increase or a decrease in latency depending on how good the routing is. Valve, for example, claims their methods often results in a decrease in latency. But the backbone of Rockstar’s network may not be as good as Valve and as such preferring to avoid increasing the latency of many players by doing so.

The new data protocol benefits Rockstar more in the everlasting battle of detecting cheaters and banning them. A new cloud service endpoint and server-side changes patched out spoofing. We need similar solutions to address how reporting cheaters leads to facing retaliation in the form of crashes and kicks. Plus, the report not being processed since the cheater has to allow the “Self Report” function to run on his client. All of them, of course, block it.

But if a report goes from a local client -> a cloud service -> the reported client, cheaters would at least know someone reported them, but not pinpoint exactly “who”. This doesn’t necessarily translate to reporting a cheater equals Rockstar banning him, since Rockstar has to verify all the data retrieved from the report and to avoid issuing out false positive bans. Some mod menu devs can be really good at spoofing the data to slip under Rockstar’s radar. Even so, monitoring what the reported player does afterwards could solve the puzzle. A legit player wouldn’t know he has been reported. A cheater, on the other hand, may fire back at all players knowing someone reported him, but unable to pinpoint exactly who. Easily giving the impression that he’s cheating, but some cheaters may go the extra mile and not give off sus vibes right after being reported by not retaliating whatsoever. That, for our benefit, acts as a constraint for the cheater to act in good behavior.

Conclusion:

But Sadly After a Great Step this Didnt Took Much Time to Break the Patch the P2C Owners has Again Found the Alternative to break it again

Prior to the patch, you could say GTAO was set on the “Always” option. The game establishes connections directly with other players, but relays the connection if a direct connection cannot be established.

But now, it’s set on “Default” option. Establish connections via relay servers, but use direct connections whenever necessary to avoid excessive ping times. The “establishing” part is done via relay servers in order to verify the new P2P certificates.

Which brings us to a second point of locating where the relay servers are. Thanks to the various technical tests done by @logan-mcgee, we have a list of the region codes and the relay servers for each region.

Region 1 – Rockstar/Take-Two New York Server (South America/Africa)
Region 2 – Rockstar/Take-Two New York Server (Greenland/East Coast US)
Region 3 – Rockstar/Take-Two Amsterdam Server (Europe)
Region 4 – Microsoft Azure Hong Kong (Asia)
Region 5 – Microsoft Azure Sydney (Australia)
Region 6 – Rockstar/Take-Two New York Server (Canada/West Coast US)
Region 7 – Microsoft Azure Hong Kong (Japan)

You can summarize this as the Americas routing back to US East Coast (New York) or US West Coast (San Diego) as corrected by Spider. Europe routing to Amsterdam. Asia routing to Hong Kong. Australians routing to Sydney.

If you live where the relay servers are or near them, depending on your firewall, you can expect your IP Address to be shielded in most cases. If you don’t, then your IP Address may still be shielded, but if the game notice that a direct connection is better off established with a player who lives nearby than a relay server miles away, your IP Address will be exposed to that nearby player. But if there’s a second player who lives next to the “miles away” relay server, then your IP Address would be mostly likely shielded from him. I say “most likely” because it’s a case of whose connection is more favorable in terms of firewalls.

Diving further turns the topic into a common issue experienced with most games. Routing and Server Availability across regions. In addition to Valve, Riot Games dives deep within their tech blog.