Information about the *Cough* virus.

[Lilshadow48]

Currently there is a virus that forces the infected to spam *Cough* in steam chat and ingame chats.

It effects games running on the Source engine, and is supposed to spread through connecting to an infected server, it cannot spread through the spam in steam chat.

Infected servers show !!! before their name.

Currently the virus itself is ENTIRELY harmless
( this part is mostly rumors and theorizes, take what you will out of it )
VAC is supposed to consider this a hack, because technically it is, there are rumors of people being VAC banned for having it.

As far as I am aware, Gmod is the primary source of the virus, TF2, Counter-strike, and really any game that uses Source can possibly be effected. (The virus MAY only infect Gmod because of LUA however)


The virus itself seems to be made for the entire purpose of pointing out this incredibly fatal flaw in Source, to fix it.

There are currently fixes for this up on the internets.

Mor0n(Remove the zero, steam blocks the name)yard.com/forums/index.php?topic=1898.msg11463
Temporary fix, a friend of mine has already used this and confirmed that it worked.

http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1386855
Possibly permanent fix, no idea if it works as I haven't been effected by this to my knowledge.


If someone has sent you the message "*cough*" I suggest sending them this, or referring them to one of the fixes listed.

Please do not joke about this on non-official servers (or on official servers for that matter, votekick exists), some servers are trying to keep themselves unafflicted so much that they are out-right banning people who say *cough* in chat.




Take what you will and correct whatever information may be wrong, this is what I know of it.

[Profile Name]

is this differnet from the VINH'LL FIX IT@@ virus? are they 2 seperate virus that do the same thing? also the VINH'LL FIX IT@@ virus changes your name to and spams so much, it spams invites, chat and in game voice cjhat with dubstp

[Saint Pablo]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von PlayerUpJack:

is this differnet from the VINH'LL FIX IT@@ virus? are they 2 seperate virus that do the same thing? also the VINH'LL FIX IT@@ virus changes your name to and spams so much, it spams invites, chat and in game voice cjhat with dubstp

A friend of mine recently got that.Not sure what "VINH'LL FIX IT" means...

[Lilshadow48]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von PlayerUpJack:

is this differnet from the VINH'LL FIX IT@@ virus? are they 2 seperate virus that do the same thing? also the VINH'LL FIX IT@@ virus changes your name to and spams so much, it spams invites, chat and in game voice cjhat with dubstp

Fairly sure they are two separate viruses, but for the same purpose.
Might be even made by the same person/persons.
As far as I know neither are directly harmful outside of the possibility of VAC flipping out about them.

[asian boy hamm]

hide yo hats
hide yo stranges
cuz tha cough cough virus killin everybody out here

[Igykyuu]

this is pretty nice info, thanks for sharing this!

[Lilshadow48]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von stereotypical anime character:

this is pretty nice info, thanks for sharing this!

It's my pleasure to share this.
The more exposure this gets the better, more of a chance for it to be fixed sooner.

[Oykenshui]

people on the GMod board are saying its that stupid derp trolling guy on twitter. You know, the guy that posts everything he's hacking? I hate that guy

[asian boy hamm]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Roshi:

people on the GMod board are saying its that stupid derp trolling guy on twitter. You know, the guy that posts everything he's hacking? I hate that guy

DON'T BELIEVE THEM , WE SHALL BRACE OURSELVES FOR THE APOCALYPSE , NOTHING WILL SURVIVE IF WE DON'T

[Lilshadow48]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Skrub-lord Gentlehamm:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Roshi:

people on the GMod board are saying its that stupid derp trolling guy on twitter. You know, the guy that posts everything he's hacking? I hate that guy

DON'T BELIEVE THEM , WE SHALL BRACE OURSELVES FOR THE APOCALYPSE , NOTHING WILL SURVIVE IF WE DON'T

ALL SHALL BE REBORN IN *cough*
LIKE A PHOENIX

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

99.99% chance of trolling. Any virus that can exploit a game engine to run arbitrary code on a users system is so dangerous they'd just shut down the game until it could be fixed.

[asian boy hamm]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Lilshadow48:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Skrub-lord Gentlehamm:

DON'T BELIEVE THEM , WE SHALL BRACE OURSELVES FOR THE APOCALYPSE , NOTHING WILL SURVIVE IF WE DON'T

ALL SHALL BE REBORN IN *cough*
LIKE A PHOENIX

wait , NO. you haven'- lilshadow , don't let it be true ! don't say you're .. INFECTED

[Lilshadow48]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™ stuck status:

99.99% chance of trolling. Any virus that can exploit a game engine to run arbitrary code on a users system is so dangerous they'd just shut down the game until it could be fixed.

As much as I wish it was trolling, it isn't trolling.
It's a thing that's happening right now.


The server I'm an admin on has been hit by this and multiple people I know from that server have been spamming the *cough*, including someone who has no connection to anyone on that server.
The server is currently down to prevent it from spreading from us further.

Unless they all met up and plotted to screw with me, this is a thing that's happening.

[Oykenshui]

Another update from the GMod boards, they're saying Gmod just got updated and that the virus has been terminated.

[Lilshadow48]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Roshi:

Another update from the GMod boards, they're saying Gmod just got updated and that the virus has been terminated.

Awesome.

[Igykyuu]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Lilshadow48:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Roshi:

Another update from the GMod boards, they're saying Gmod just got updated and that the virus has been terminated.

Awesome.

so that's what the update I got just now was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOr0na6mKJQ