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Shift Up confirms Nikke PC launcher scripts were tampered with

Shift Up says third parties may have altered Nikke’s PC launcher scripts, shipped a November 4 fix, and is still probing how far the supply-chain hit went.

By Sasha Shader, Software & Security Reporter ·

Edited by Dot Matrix, Editor-in-Chief

A shadowy hand tampering with code visible in a game launcher window on a desktop PC monitor.
Tampered launcher scripts on a darkened PC. Illustration generated by AI.

Shift Up has confirmed that script files in the PC launcher for Goddess of Victory: NIKKE may have been tampered with by a third party, and it pushed a client fix on November 4.12

In a notice on X, the studio said it had identified an issue indicating the PC launcher’s “script files may have been tampered with by a third party.” Client fixes and an update went out at about 02:30 UTC+9 that day. The company is investigating the scope of the impact and said it will spell out follow-up measures in a separate notice.23

Seen it before: a launcher that quietly loads scripts from a shared CDN is a supply chain with a soft underbelly, and this one got poked.

NIKKE is a sci-fi shooter RPG from the South Korean firm behind Stellar Blade, playable on Windows, iOS, and Android. Publisher Level Infinite has reported more than 45 million downloads since the 2022 launch.24

Independent research described four JavaScript files on Level Infinite’s official content delivery network as modified on September 27, 2026, so that opening the launcher pulled extra code from attacker-controlled domains. A CDN is simply the network of servers a publisher uses to ship launcher and game files to players; if those files are swapped, every client that checks in can pick up the bad copy. Security analysis found an obfuscated loader, a LuaJIT payload that installed a remote-access agent labeled K2F, and optional follow-on malware that could run commands, take screenshots, collect NIKKE credentials and browser data, and—via a Windows DLL—target cryptocurrency wallet extensions. Whether that DLL was widely deployed, or wallets were drained, is not confirmed.23

What you should do: Install the November 4 PC client update. If the launcher shows a security warning, close it and wait for the publisher’s all-clear. In the NIKKE install folder, check Launcher/intl_service/debug.log for the string k2f_chan; that entry means the malicious agent ran. Change passwords used on that machine, and treat browser-stored logins and any crypto wallets on the same PC as exposed until you verify otherwise. Changing a password is cheap.2

One researcher said three of the four bad scripts were replaced by November 3, with a fourth still served later that day. The full player impact is still open.2

Our read: Same-day disclosure and a client fix are the right first moves. The open questions are how long the bad scripts sat on the CDN, how many PCs pulled them, and whether the wallet-stealing piece went out at scale. The separate notice Shift Up promised is where those scope claims get tested.

Footnotes

  1. GamesRadar, “Stellar Blade studio confirms previous game Nikke was hacked and the launcher potentially impacted”. Retrieved November 5, 2026. ↩

  2. BleepingComputer, “NIKKE PC game launcher hacked to spread remote access, data-stealing malware”. Retrieved November 5, 2026. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  3. PCMag, “PC Game Launcher for Goddess of Victory: Nikke Hacked To Spread Malware”. Retrieved November 5, 2026. ↩ ↩2

  4. The Korea Herald, “Shift Up shakes up Korean gaming industry with agility”. Retrieved November 5, 2026. ↩

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