Grand Theft Auto Online

Grand Theft Auto Online is the persistent multiplayer mode of Grand Theft Auto V, developed by RockstarPublisherRockstar Games / Take-TwoRockstar Games (a Take-Two label) develops Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead on its proprietary RAGE engine. GTA Online ran without client anti-cheat for nine years on PC before Rockstar added kernel-mode BattlEye in 2024.2 games in this family → North and published by Rockstar Games (Take-Two). GTA V released in 2013 and on PC in 2015, running on Rockstar's proprietary RAGEEngineRAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine)RAGE is Rockstar's proprietary engine, powering Grand Theft Auto V / Online and Red Dead Redemption 2. Built and maintained in-house, it is known for large open worlds and physics-heavy simulation.2 games in this family → engine; GTA Online has been updated continuously ever since across Steam, the Epic Games Store, the Rockstar launcher, and consoles. It is one of the best-selling and most-played titles in the medium.

Playing GTA Online on PC since September 2024 means accepting BattlEyeAnti-cheatBattlEyeBattlEye is the kernel anti-cheat from BattlEye Innovations GmbH (Reutlingen, Germany), founded 2004. One of the longest-running kernel anti-cheats in PC gaming. The kernel driver (bedaisy.sys) and user-mode service (BEService.exe) are both catalogued in the Field Guide.5 games in this family →'s kernel driver, which loads with the game and unloads when you close it. On Linux or a Steam Deck, online play is currently blocked by Rockstar's configuration, though single-player runs with a launch option. The legitimate game process is GTA5.exe; the BattlEye service can persist after uninstall, and BattlEye publishes an uninstall script for a clean exit.

For most of its PC life, GTA Online shipped no client-side anti-cheat at all, which is a large part of why it became notorious for modder menus and griefing. That changed on September 17, 2024, when Rockstar added BattlEye, a kernel-mode anti-cheat, to GTA Online on PC, roughly nine years after the PC launch. BattlEye's kernel driver (bedaisy.sysDriverbedaisy.sysBattlEye kernel-mode minifilter driverOpen plate →, catalogued in the drivers section) loads on demand when the game launches and unloads when it exits; the user-mode pieces are BEService.exe and BEClient. Rockstar did not enable BattlEye's Linux support, so the 2024 update locked Steam Deck and Linux players out of online play, though story mode still runs. The game process is GTA5.exe.

GTA Online's pre-2024 cheating problem was severe and well documented: mod menus that dropped money, corrupted accounts, and griefed lobbies with impunity. The sharpest incident was in January 2023, when a mod menu weaponized a client-side flaw (assigned CVE-2023-24059) that could remotely corrupt accounts and trigger bans on other players, including players who were merely online rather than in the attacker's lobby; Rockstar shipped a security update to patch it, covered by BleepingComputer and others. After BattlEye arrived in 2024, the first enforcement wave also caught some innocent players in false bans, and Rockstar opened an appeals process and began reversing them.