Polish video game publisher CD Projekt Red (The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077) announced on Tuesday February 9 that it had been the victim of a hack. “We discovered yesterday that we were affected by a targeted computer attack, during which some of our internal systems were compromised”, writes the company in a press release.
According to the publisher, a number of its machines have been affected by ransomware, which has encrypted its content to make it inaccessible until a ransom has been paid. CD Projekt Red has also made public the text of the ransom demand, in which hackers threaten to release files containing the source code of several games, including Cyberpunk 2077 and a “Unpublished version of The Witcher 3 ». CD Projekt claims to have refused to pay a ransom, and to have filed a complaint.
The ransom note explains that the attacker (s) were able to gain access to the Perforce server used by CD Projekt Red. Perforce, editor of development tools that allow in particular to manage different versions of a video game under development, has bien CD Projekt Red among its clients.
Unknown pirate
The identity of the hacker (s) remains unknown. The ransom note does not contain any group claims, and its format does not match that typically used by criminal groups specializing in such ransom demands.
CD Projekt Red was the subject of a major controversy at the end of 2020, with the release of Cyberpunk 2077. The most anticipated video game of the year, the title, which had many bugs and whose versions for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One suffered from very poor graphics quality, was the subject of numerous criticisms. CD Projekt Red’s stock plunged into the stock market, and the company encouraged disgruntled gamers to seek reimbursement from Sony and Microsoft, distributors of the dematerialized version of the console game. The company has also been heavily criticized for the extremely harsh working conditions imposed on its employees to end the game.
In 2017, CD Projekt Red had already been the target of an attempt to blackmail stolen files. The company explained at the time have been contacted by one or more persons in possession of a handful of documents concerning Cyberpunk 2077, who demanded a ransom not to disseminate them. CD Projekt Red claimed to have refused to pay.
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