Insomniac Games hacked, 1.3 million files leaked for $2 million ransom – PlayStation

The hackers demanded a ransom of $2 million from the well-known video game development group now owned by Sony. As Insomniac Games’ one-week deadline to meet Team Rhysida’s demands passed, the team followed through on its threat, releasing the stolen information to the public, Cyber ​​Daily reports.

The stolen data includes a wide range of internal HR documents, recordings of employee Slack conversations, and more. However, the focus of the stolen data is the unreleased Wolverine video game. The leaked files offer a peek at the design of the game’s tracks, characters, and even actual screenshots of the game. Additionally, a publishing agreement signed between Sony and Marvel was also revealed, which revealed plans for three upcoming X-Men games. The first of these is Wolverine, while the titles of the other two are kept secret. The deal stipulates that Sony, which plans to invest $120 million per game, is obligated to release Wolverine by September 1, 2025. The following games are expected to be released by the end of 2029 and 2033, respectively.

Rhysida claims that it only took the group between 20 to 25 minutes to take control of a domain administrator, with the entire move being carried out for financial gain as the primary goal. “We knew game developers of this caliber would be an easy target,” a Rhysida representative told Cyber ​​Daily, adding that “Sony has launched an investigation, but nothing will come of it.”

Interestingly, the original ransom note provided by Rhysida allowed anyone to bid on the data, not just Insomniac Games, and it appears that some of the data has found buyers. The ransomware team stated that any data that was not disclosed has become publicly available, however, only 98% of the stolen information is currently publicly available. Rhysida has mandated that any purchased data not be resold, but it remains to be seen whether the new owners will respect this requirement.

While the Rhysida attack specifically targeted Insomniac Games within Sony, another separate attack in May compromised the personal data of 6,800 current and former employees at the company. This attack, claimed by the CLOP ransomware group, came to light in October.