Hacking Unity Games with Malicious GameObjects

The Unity game engine provides various means for getting external assets into a game, such as AssetBundles, for adding assets at runtime and the Asset Store, for purchasing third-party assets.

It’s possible for a GameObject to execute arbitrary code using no custom scripts, only components that are available by default in Unity. If the game uses Bolt or another visual scripting system, there are even more paths to code execution. In this blog I will cover how a malicious GameObject might get into a game, two specific methods I’m aware of for the GameObject to execute code, and possible ways to mitigate the risk.

Dependency Confusion Vulnerabilities in Unity Game Development

The Unity game engine has a package manager which allows packaged code and assets to be imported into a game, with dependencies automatically handled. Originally this was used only for Unity-produced packages, such as the GUI system. Later Unity began allowing private registries so that game studios can maintain their own internal packages. The IncludeSec research team found that the previous advice to Unity game developers to stand up their own package manager left them vulnerable to dependency confusion by default.