L4D Infected Exploit Fix

[CrimsonGT]

This is just a small plugin that blocks that "spectate" command, and issues a log message to your log files, and your server console alerting you to a possible attempt at this exploit. It also lists their steam ID, so if you see numerous log messages for the same Steam ID, you can simply add them to the ban list.

What is the Exploit?
Players can spawn large amounts of bot special infected in a versus game repeatedly, causing almost waves of special infected to swarm the survivor players. This is done by repeatedly switching between the spectator team and infected team.

How to Install:
Theres no cvars or anything. Just place it in your plugins folder and either restart server, change the map, or do "sm plugins refresh" in console.

[bolinux]

Cant compile: Plugin failed to compile! Please try contacting the author.


SourcePawn Compiler 1.0.4
Copyright (c) 1997-2006, ITB CompuPhase, (C)2004-2008 AlliedModders, LLC

/home/groups/sourcemod/upload_tmp/phpMGDnfZ.sp(14) : error 017: undefined symbol "PLUGIN_VERSION"

1 Error.



Can you add a autoban please?

[CrimsonGT]

Woops sorry, forgot to create the plugin version. Done.

[santaclaus]

i wasn't even aware of this exploit.

:ouch:

EDIT :

I've just seen two videos about it .... omg .... I think valve should patch this soon.

[CrimsonGT]

From past experience, it seems valve tends to fix things almost as soon as they see the modder community doing there job for them. Atleast this was the case with TF2, so hopefully they will follow suite.

If not, this is a decent temporary fix. If it stays around much longer unpatched, I am going to upgrade this plugin to just allow for it to auto ban players that switch to spectator X times. Before this exploit, I had never seen anyone go spectator, so I think 3 times going to spectator repeatedly would be a reasonable amount to ban someone for, because obviously they are up to no good.

[santaclaus]

I am going to upgrade this plugin to just allow for it to auto ban players that switch to spectator X times. Before this exploit, I had never seen anyone go spectator, so I think 3 times going to spectator repeatedly would be a reasonable amount to ban someone for, because obviously they are up to no good.

Nice idea.
Especially since "spectate" cmd is useful to manually fix the teams in versus (team scramble)

[death_hawk]

I didn't think there was even a spectate mode in VS play.

Not that I'm trying to abuse the exploit, but how do you get into it?
It's great for team balancing for a temporary AFK.

In fact, that's one thing I think the game is missing. Sadly it looks like it was implemented poorly.

[CrimsonGT]

By typing "spectate" in console. Im kind of thinking it was not intended for release since it doesn't show up in the drop down menu of console commands when you type it.

[Number Six]

This is just a small plugin that blocks that "spectate" command, and issues a log message to your log files, and your server console alerting you to a possible attempt at this exploit. It also lists their steam ID, so if you see numerous log messages for the same Steam ID, you can simply add them to the ban list.


Hi personnaly on my server , write on the .log file to sourcemod with no problem ; apparently block (?) exploit , but nothing read in the console to sourcemod during game "players xxxxx atempt use exploit blablabla ......" , it's normal ?

Gratitude for great multi pluggins for l4d .

[Ydiss]

Hi

Thanks for this, Crimson.

[Edit] Hmm, it would appear this mod (http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=82903) might well solve the problem anyway (by just killing the infected bot as the player enters spectate).

As I said in your thread on the Steam L4D forum, this is highly likely to conflict with The [L4D] Unscrambler mod (http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=82270), by Fyren.

We run this on our server because it's extremely frustrating to have the game randomly switch teams on map load - and this bug happens a ton. The mod, so far, appears to fix the problem very well and we've had almost zero problems with the bug (we've seen it fixing teams a lot, too).

It uses the spectate command to automatically switch around players that were bugged to the other team.

Can anyone confirm if the Infected Exploit Fix conflicts with the Unscrambler mod? If it doesn't, I'll go right ahead and install this temp fix, to avoid anyone exploiting on my server.

However, if it does conflict, the Infected spectate exploit is definitely the lesser of the two evils because I've never seen it happen yet - whereas the team switch bug happens almost constantly and is an extreme pain in the backside.

If it does indeed conflict then, as said on the L4D forum, a method that checks the state of the player before blocking the use of the spectate command would be very helpful. It should confirm if they are:

1) Infected and
2) Alive (Not in ghost mode and not dead)

Then, and only then, it blocks the use of spectate. This should allow the fix to run seamlessly with the unscrambler.

Thanks in advance for any help and thanks for taking the time to help with this bug.

[KawMAN]

Try this http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=82903

[Fyren]

Blocking the spectate command won't matter for my plugin.

[Ydiss]

Blocking the spectate command won't matter for my plugin.Great :) Thanks for confirming this, Fyren.

We'll probably use all three (including the one above) :D

Will try them all together and see how it goes.

[wgooch]

I found this bug told it to 2 people and the next day I saw it everywhere, I'm very sorry that I caused all this trouble, I just played another game where the whole other team used it.

[Darin]

I downloaded this plugin and it doesn't work. People were screwing my server over!

[DJ Tsunami]

Wasn't this fixed?

[CrimsonGT]

Yeah, you can move it to unapproved or delete it or whatever :)