Insomniac Games Cyber Attack: Confidential Data Leaked & Ransom Demand

Insomniac Games, Sony’s game studio, fell victim to a cyberattack, the attackers threatened to release several terabytes of confidential data, demanding a $2 million ransom.

Insomniac Games under cyber attack

The game development company Insomniac Games was given seven days to pay the ransom of 50 bitcoins (equivalent to approximately 2 million dollars). THE attackers have now carried out their threat, and more than 1.3 million documents have been published. The contracts of Sony and Marvel, among others, were leaked online, but game details and many personal data were also illegally exposed.

Allegedly, only 2% of the leaked data was sold on a specialized black market auction platform. The remaining 98% were made public for free. Among the information made public is the X-Men contract signed between Sony and Marvel in 2021. Under that deal, Insomniac’s upcoming Wolverine game was originally slated for release before September 2025. And the next two games are scheduled for December 2029 and December 2033. However, the leaked files show that the Wolverine game is not expected to be released until 2026.

The leaked data also includes details about Insomniac’s other planned games. These include things like Venom, Spider-Man 3, a new Ratchet & Clank game, and another X-Men game. Footage and concept drawings of the upcoming Wolverine game have also surfaced online. Information such as a third-person perspective, features using Wolverine’s claws, and a storyline involving newer X-Men characters such as Mystique were revealed.

Also, the leaked information shows that Sony has budgeted $120 million for each game through Insomniac. Additionally, Wolverine is expected to net $85 million, Spider-Man 2 $75 million, and Spider-Man 3 $170 million.

The game studio was an easy target

The hacker group responsible for the attack, Rhysida, claimed that their motivation was purely monetary. They stated that developers who make such games are easy targets. They claimed it only took 20-25 minutes to hack Sony’s system and obtain Insomniac’s data.

The leaks also suggest that Insomniac has exclusivity on the X-Men games until 2035. This prevents Marvel from using X-Men characters in games or releasing X-Men games for PC, console or streaming. While Marvel retains certain gaming rights to the X-Men characters, standalone X-Men games will be exclusively owned by Insomniac for the next 11 years. Sony has yet to respond to inquiries about the incident.

2023-12-24 10:04:45
#game #studio #Insomniac #Games #suffered #cyber #attack #leaked