Being Paranoid About Rimworld Mods

[Hyper]

HI i'd like to start by saying i have played this game before with mods (years ago) but I now have a complete new system i don't want to chance anything, i'm just worried that one will give me a virus. Am i just paranoid? Is there actual cases of this happening?

[Mr Holiday]

Haven't had that happen to me no, but I did find a log file that was massive, triple digits gigabyte sized, so I'd suggest checking your computer for that wasted space.

The pathway I think was
C:\Users\[user]\AppData\LocalLow\Ludeon Studios\RimWorld by Ludeon Studios

I haven't had it recently, but when I did experience this, I had made the error window auto-close so I could just ignore it when I did my zombie mods, turns out it was a bad idea not clearing it.

[Astasia]

The error log thing is a unity sound effect error that happens when you are closing the game and isn't related to any specific mod. If you try to close the game and it doesn't close but just sits there for several minutes, that is the point it is creating that endless log, force close the game and it will stop.

Mods on the workshop are probably the safest thing you could ever download on the internet. You are more at risk of getting a virus/malware while watching a youtube video.

[Hyper]

that's assuring but what's stopping someone from implementing a malicious program in a mod? Does Steam have a way of preventing it?

[Hyper]

What I want to know is what makes steam workshop safe?

[BLAME! 40K]

what makes your provider and firewall safe ?

[desrtfox071]

Originally posted by Hyper:

What I want to know is what makes steam workshop safe?

Safety is not a binary question. There is no "safe" vs "unsafe". There is more safe vs less safe. Steam mods are certainly more safe than many internet downloads.

[Jigain]

Honestly, if you are worried, don't download mods. 99.99% of the mods you will find are virus-free, but as with everything you download on the internet (even things you download just by visiting a website), it's up to you to not download things that infects your computer. Never download anything you either don't trust, or aren't willing to take a risk on.

[BLAME! 40K]

Originally posted by desrtfox071:

Originally posted by Hyper:

What I want to know is what makes steam workshop safe?

Safety is not a binary question. There is no "safe" vs "unsafe". There is more safe vs less safe. Steam mods are ecertainly more safe than many internet downloads.

yep

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Hyper:

that's assuring but what's stopping someone from implementing a malicious program in a mod? Does Steam have a way of preventing it?

Mods aren't programs and don't execute anything, you can't upload an exe to the workshop and if you could Steam would never run it. For RimWorld specifically most mods are just text files (XML), a few of them have dlls which run through the game but in order for them to be malicious there would have to be a vulnerability in how the game loads mods that allows them to do something bad, and then this would have to be a custom created virus made just for RimWorld players and nobody is going to consider that worthwhile to make, deploy, and risk jail time for. It's not impossible, but it's never happened before AFAIK.

If you are still concerned you can just look at when a mod was uploaded and how many subscribers it has. A mod that has been around for months and is used by many thousands of people with none of them posting comments about it being a virus is going to be as risk free as it gets. If it's a brand new mod with only 10 users, maybe wait a few days for other people to make sure it's safe.

A good starting point for modding is the Vanilla Expanded collection, and mods by Dubwise. They are very popular and well made with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Nobody has accused those modders of doing anything malicious over the years.

[2bael]

If it's from the steam workshop, there's no need to worry about viruses.

[Doom Sayer]

I havent gotten a single virus modding anygame. On steam workshop of course you can get viruses you can get a virus from netflix, a real legit anti virus site, from microsoft office templates. Literally COD mp with no mods you can get a virus. Everything can get you a virus. Just leave windows defender on and try some level of discernment with files you download. I dont even try very hard and download a lot using various methods and never gotten a virus. I will even exempt files from windows if i dont believe windows defender is correct about something being a virus. In my opinion the main workshop risk is malicious code exploiting game vulnerabilities as you see source games patched occasionally for stuff like this.

Trying to avoid sources of viruses is like avoiding carcinogens.

How exactly is virus a worry for you? Are you like some high profile guy like Bill Gates or Elon Musk? You have a chunky crypto wallet with sensitive stuff saved on your PC? If your really worried just setup a cheap offline PC and use that for sensitive info since its hard for hackers to get stuff if the pc is never on a network or online.

I only ask because i see these types of posts or worries and honestly dont get it.

[Playzr 🐵]

I don't think someone can just upload a virus to the workshop. They can't upload an .exe and I think any damage they do is going to be limited to how Rimworld goes. I don't think somebody could write a Rimworld mod that for example scans the files of your computer for logins and bank information. I don't think Rimworld allows that kind of capability to read and write files outside of the game's regular folders. There are so many other ways you can get a virus and most people are wise enough not to. We definitely trust the well known modders that, even if it was possible to make a workshop virus, wouldn't do that after making such a nice mod. The worst a workshop mod can do is break Rimworld.
When was the last time anybody got a virus anyway.

[BLAME! 40K]

Originally posted by Рlαγζr 🐵:

I don't think someone can just upload a virus to the workshop. They can't upload an .exe and I think any damage they do is going to be limited to how Rimworld goes. I don't think somebody could write a Rimworld mod that for example scans the files of your computer for logins and bank information. I don't think Rimworld allows that kind of capability to read and write files outside of the game's regular folders. There are so many other ways you can get a virus and most people are wise enough not to. We definitely trust the well known modders that, even if it was possible to make a workshop virus, wouldn't do that after making such a nice mod. The worst a workshop mod can do is break Rimworld.
When was the last time anybody got a virus anyway.

´13 years ago cause stupidity

[4FCG]

Depends, on the game too. Most mods aren't custom code that is executed. They use existing game systems and add more content into those. And unless the game uses such content in an unsafe manner, IE something that allows for the content to execute code. It should be pretty difficult to execute any malware.
In fact full on changing or adding code to the game is outside of the scope of what steam mods can do in most cases.

Furthermore you do not launch games in administrator mode. Which means anything that does get executed by the game does not have such permissions either, which limits what malware can actually achieve.

Steam also scans uploaded mod files using some kind of virus scanner to look for known signatures. So to get by that they actually have to put in a bit of effort too.

All in all, don't worry too much about it, and to be very safe stick to popular mods. Those already had a few hundred guinea pigs test it for malware before you.

[Qx]

Use popular mods thats all dont use one of those dusty 0 star rimworld named mods they are sus