Yes, picking up an NPC's hacked underwear is actually a crime. Ye, Tarnished.

Elden Ring players have found themselves hit with soft bans and forced to delete their saved data after unknowlingly picking up a hacked item - Fia's underwear. The item, which is only accessed via cheats, seem to have infiltrated the games of regular players who have unknowingly come across them via multiplayer.

One Reddit user, u/Ok-Communication7125, found this out the hard way after their account was soft banned and their 220 hour save file ordered to be deleted.

According to the Redditor, their account was banned shortly after picking up an item from a player during multiplayer called the "Deathbed Smalls." The player had no idea that these undies were supposed to be an unobtainable item and soon reached out to Bandai Namco for help.

However, the response that they received, while apologetic, instructed the user that as the item was hacked the player would need to delete all save files for Elden Ring and reinstall the game. Failing to do so would result in their account being "suspended for 180 days." Ouch.

After posting their woes to the forum site, Ok-Communication7125 followed up by saying, "Would also like to note that the person who gave me the underwear had the in game name of pantsu dealer lol."

While players might be worried about accidentally encountering the hacked item, it's likely you won't need to dwell on it. With the rollout of Elden Ring's latest patch, 1.04, a fix was deployed for a bug that allowed unauthorized items to be passed to other players. Though the notes didn't explicitly state that the unauthorized item was the Deathbed Smalls.

In any case, it's best to avoid anyone called Pantsu Dealer - they're probably up to no good.