Street Fighter 5 is no longer available to buy, and a major security issue

Although it hasn’t been the franchise’s main game in a decade, developer Capcom has temporarily disabled Street Fighter 5 almost completely. Recently, a large number of security threats were found in the PHP programming language, leaving many pieces of web development vulnerable to attacks. Street Fighter 5 appears especially vulnerable, as Capcom has pulled the game from both the PlayStation 5 and PC marketplaces and disabled all online functionality.

This seems like a temporary measure, as Capcom reassured the player base that “emergency maintenance” is underway and a fix should be ready soon. Until that happens, though, players will be unable to purchase or play a majority of the content in Street Fighter 5.

Capcom finds critical security threat in Street Fighter 5

Cybersecurity analysts discovered the original security threats in the PHP programming language, a common tool for web development for many years. The analysts used AI to discover the vulnerabilities, which led Capcom to find out that Street Fighter 5 was especially at risk.

While other websites and games that rely on this programming language were able to resolve the security problems quickly, the same can’t be said for Capcom. In a recent post on Twitter, Capcom stated that it was taking the game completely offline to shore up its security so future threats could be effectively nullified.

“To further strengthen security related to the PHP programming language used in the PlayStation 4 and Steam versions of Street Fighter V, content requiring online functionality is currently unavailable.”

Capcom stated that players still playing the fighting game could continue to play offline content, but sales on both PS4 and Steam are suspended until further notice.

Of course, it’s completely unclear when this “emergency maintenance” will be resolved. Capcom is somewhat notorious for taking a while to fix security issues, as players responded to the Twitter post asking about Street Fighter x Tekken, which took years to get all of its problems fixed. While it might take some time, though, it’s preferable to potential hackers gaining access to players’ private information in Street Fighter 5.

It hasn’t been a great week for Capcom as a whole, as this problem with Street Fighter 5 comes days after the company suffered a massive data breach, exposing millions of players’ email addresses. While it doesn’t appear the two problems are linked, Capcom is seemingly playing things more safe than sorry to avoid any additional security issues.