Meccha Chameleon patches workshop malware after Discord takeover

Developer Haganeiro has patched a vulnerability in Meccha Chameleon that allowed multiple Steam Workshop maps to distribute malware to players, PC Gamer reports. The fix shipped in update 3.1.0, and the studio says the malware in the affected maps has been neutralised.

The problem surfaced through a Medium post by a user identified as Feint, picked up by Kotaku. Feint wrote that friends had reported seeing a command prompt window briefly appear while Steam was downloading a custom workshop map, and that inspection turned up what appeared to be a malware dropper inside an otherwise ordinary map despite it having passed workshop review. The map named in the post, Laser Tag Neon, was later replaced by another upload called Chroma Grid Arena, according to an update Feint added to the blog.

Developer confirms the fix

Haganeiro confirmed the issue in a post on X on Saturday. "The vulnerability in the custom maps described in today's update 3.1.0 has been fixed, so there are no issues after applying it," the studio wrote, adding that it had confirmed the malware was disabled for the affected maps both before and after the update. PC Gamer advises players who have used custom maps recently to run a scan.

Discord server hijacked during the fix

The malicious maps were not the only problem the team dealt with. The game's official Discord server, which has close to 100,000 members, was hacked. In a Steam Community blog post the developers said they had contacted Discord Support and were awaiting a response, and that a new server would be set up if the existing one could not be recovered.

Developer lemorion_1224 said on X that the takeover happened because a system engineer's PC was infected with malware while the vulnerabilities were being fixed.

The compromised machine was a backup device and cannot be used to edit game files, the developer said. Players have been warned not to follow any suspicious links posted through the compromised Discord while the team works to regain control of it.