roblox
Roblox, a popular game among children and early teens that announced 100 million active players last year, has become a small-scale battleground in the upcoming presidential elections. The BBC is reporting that hackers are taking over accounts to spread pro-Trump propaganda, dressing them up in red hats like Trump supporters and putting pro-Trump messages in profiles.
Roblox has yet to comment publicly about the hacks. I’ve contacted them for comment and will update with any new information.
There are ton of posts on social media from players who say that their accounts have been hacked, and Gamespot notes that since Roblox accounts are indexed by Google, it’s easy to see a ton of accounts featuring the same message in the “about field”: Ask your parents to vote for Trump this year!#Maga2020. A search on Google yields about 1,800 results.
Roblox’s official help site has information for players whose accounts have been hacked. It advises players to reset their password, clear third-party browser extensions, and enable two-factor authentication. In this instance, it appears that hackers are making changes to people’s accounts and characters, however, so that may not be enough. In that instance, you’ll have to contact customer service to try to get them to reverse some of the damage. It’s not clear, at this moment, how hackers are gaining access to accounts, but they also appear to be spamming friend requests and friend lists to send out pro-trump messages far beyond the single hacked account.
Security problems are always big issues for online games, but they’re particularly keen in a game targeted at such a young audience. The game prominently advertises parental controls, chat filters and reporting systems designed to make the game safer for children, which makes the threat of hackers a big deal beyond simple political messaging. It’s unclear who is responsible for the hacks at this time, but there are plenty of possible culprits in the murky world of pro-Trump online communities.
