‘Escape From Tarkov’ YouTuber claims to have been “attacked” after exposing cheating

Escape From Tarkov YouTuber g0at has claimed that a cheat provider remotely destroyed three of his hard drives after he published a video exposing the widespread nature of cheats in Tarkov.

In February, g0at published a video titled ‘The Wiggle That Killed Tarkov‘ which showed the YouTuber using cheats to expose how many other players were using cheats in Battlestate Games‘ shooter.

To do so, g0at wiggled to players that he could see through walls due to cheats. Other players would often wiggle back, despite g0at being undetectable to legitimate players in these situations – suggesting that they were also using cheats.

G0at claimed that there were cheaters “in about 60 per cent” of the 125 raids he tested, which sparked widespread claims that Battlestate Games is not doing enough to tackle cheating.

On Friday (March 10), g0at shared a follow-up video in which he claimed to have been “attacked” by providers he used to source cheats for his investigation.

G0at said that he was trying to source soundbites of cheat providers “bragging about how their cheat hasn’t been detected in three years”. However, he was yet to reinstall windows or wipe his PC after using cheats for his investigation, which is recommended because many cheats have significant access to users’ computers in order to avoid being detected by anti-cheat software.

These cheats can also feature rootkits (software that is incredibly difficult to detect) and can give their creators access to users’ computers, allowing them to install malware or change settings on the PC.

G0at, who said he did not wipe his PC or reinstall Windows after using cheats, shared that this left his computer vulnerable when he attempted to get back in touch with his cheat provider.

“Their Discord server, which only recently added a specialised verification bot, noticed I was logged in from the same location with a different account and flagged me as a secondary account,” he shared. “This gave them the necessary info to figure out more than just who I was, but what account I had with them.”

“They messaged me and asked me to stop trying to get verified,” he continued. “Later that day, my computer wouldn’t boot up. They did what’s called a ‘boot nuke’. They fried three of my hard drives, all M2.0 drives – all inaccessible and gone.”

G0at added that his drives were “very reliable” and purchased in the last three months.

“They aren’t even the same make or model and showed no signs of failure previously,” he claimed. “It’s reasonable to assume that they were able to mess with the drivers and render the NVME drives useless – in any case I tossed them in the trash.”

The content creator admitted that although “several people” recommended that he wipe his PC after using cheats, he “didn’t do it quickly enough”.

G0at’s claims come several weeks after a community-led anti-cheat Discord for Tarkov shut down and accused Battlestate Games of failing to thoroughly investigate claims.

In other gaming news, Stalker 2 developer GSC Game World has been targeted by pro-Russian hackers.