The developer of League of Legends, Riot Games, was the victim of a cyber-attack. The developer has now come forward with details and reports of a ransom demand.
Last week, Riot Games announced that such an attack had taken place, which temporarily prevented them from releasing content such as patches for several games.
The developer of games like League of Legends, Valorant, and TFT initially held back on details.
However, Riot has now issued a more extensive statement via Twitter.
Player data likely safe – Riot fights back against ransom demand
What was stolen: Riot explains in a series of tweets that they conducted an analysis over the weekend, which revealed that source code for League of Legends, TFT, and an older anti-cheat platform was stolen by the attackers.
This attack poses the risk that new cheats could emerge in the future. Riot has therefore addressed the impact of the attack on anti-cheat systems to implement fixes as quickly as possible if necessary.
At the same time, Riot emphasizes: “Although this attack disrupted our build environment and may cause issues in the future, we are confident that no player data or personal information has been compromised” (via Twitter).
Additionally, Riot states that they received a ransom demand via email. However, the developer is clear: “Of course, we will not pay.”
According to Riot, the source code also contains some experimental features, such as game modes that could appear in future games. However, these are all prototypes with no release guarantees.
What happens next? Riot has already engaged the relevant parties: “Our security teams and globally recognized external advisors continue to assess the attack and examine our systems,” said the developer: “We have also informed law enforcement and are actively working with them as they investigate the attack and the group behind it” (via Twitter).
Furthermore, Riot plans to provide a detailed report of what actually happened – including the attackers’ approach and where Riot’s security controls may have failed. This is to ensure such an incident does not happen again.
During the week, many things are expected to be repaired, according to Riot, so that the usual patch rhythm can be continued: “The League and TFT teams will inform you soon what this means for the individual games.”
Cyber-attacks are recurring issues in the gaming world. Recently, experts warned about GTA Online on PC – where accounts are at risk.
