I went to my friends town and they started using some invisible shovel, then I lost connection.

I'm just really nervous something will happen to my game now lol.

It shouldn't mess up your game since it was their town and not yours? Unless you brought back the shovel with you? I would suggest not letting that friend into your town however, in the future.
I can't say for sure though honestly

It might have been a glitch. Hacked Switches can't connect to the internet without getting banned by Nintendo.

I agree with EmberTwist_ that it might've been a glitch. an invisible shovel followed by a disconnection sounds like the kind of thing that would happen if the connection was bad. something like an invisible shovel could be caused by the game failing to load the shovel model because of connection speeds

my friend said that it was a hacked item when i told them I couldn't see their shovel

they visited my town before but didn't do anything suspicious, just ran through my flowers and shook my tress (the Wild World flashbacks lol)


I just hope my island or save doesn't get corrupted or bricked or anything. I'm not sure how the hacking works in new horizons, as long as I don't have any of those items in my inventory or placed on my island I should be fine ?

I wouldn't let them in again, for sure. There are enough people willing to swap FC, so if you have doubts about anyone, don't connect with them.

Everyone! There's a hacker on the loose and they mean business!

EmberTwist_;

"Hacked Switches can't connect to the internet without getting banned by Nintendo."

Unfortunately, they can, as the bans aren't instant. This is why it's possible to encounter cheaters online in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Splatoon 2 quite regularly - they always slip through the net for a little while first.

That said, I agree with yourself and Chiyoko that it sounds more like a glitch caused by poor connection quality.

habib_e - Just going on the assumption that it actually was just a connection-related issue for a moment, are you sure that they weren't just pranking you by claiming that it was a hacked item?

he friend claims  the item was hacked ! it was very suspicious.

just hoping no damage was done while I was visiting and my game was interacting with theirs.

my solace is that  i'm sure my game has come into contact with thousands of hackers in splatoon 2 and nothing happened

It sounds like the person was screwing with you and it was just a connection issue, and even if it wasn't, unless the hacker purposely did something to ruin your town or placed a hacked item in YOUR town, I don't see why it would make a difference to your save.

An exploiter wouldn't be able to mess your console up like that but they'd definitely be able to modify your island. It happened in New Leaf and they would ruin towns and render them unplayable.

Even so, you should be safe if you don't let them onto your island.

(There's a difference between exploiting and hacking.)