Players of kId-friendly creative place space are discovering their accounts have become inadvertently political, as hackers dress hundreds of users up in pseudo-MAGA gear and inject Donald Trump 2020 campaign messages into their user profiles.
“Ask your parents to vote for Trump this year! #MAGA2020” is the message appearing in more than 1,500 Roblox user profiles currently indexed by Google, three times the number noted by website BleepingComputer when it first noticed the hacking campaign this past Saturday. Along with changing user profile messages, the hacker or hackers are also dressing affected players in a pair of free marketplace items. One is a red “Running of the Bulls” ball cap that looks similar to the “Make America Great Again” hats worn by Trump supporters. The other is an American eagle t-shirt that wouldn’t look out of place airbrushed on the side of a pickup truck.
Some hacked users are also reporting pro-Trump messages being sent from their accounts to other Roblox users on their friends list.
Fortunately, it does not seem like those responsible for the hack are changing user account information, so those affected can still log in and fix their stuff. BleepingComputer speculates the hackers are accessing profiles with weak passwords, and suggest users keep theirs complicated and enable two-factor authentication for their accounts.
I reached out to Roblox for comment on this story but have yet to receive a response. Hopefully this malicious attack on a free-to-play gaming platform aimed at 9 to 14 year-olds will not affect voting results come November.