Highlights
- Zero evidence of successful ransomware attack on Epic Games, despite claims made by hacker group Mogilevich.
- Ransomware attacks are a growing threat to gaming industry, with Sony's Insomniac Games studio also targeted recently.
- Epic Games and other studios urged to increase security measures to prevent future breaches and protect sensitive data.
Epic Games has officially confirmed that there’s zero evidence that the company suffered a security breach. Epic Games is known for Fortnite, the Unreal Engine, and distributing free games via the Epic Games Store, so a hack could potentially leak sensitive information not only from the company but also from its customers.
The controversy about the possible Epic Games ransomware attack started earlier today. According to the Cyber Daily, a hacker group called Mogilevich claimed to have successfully hacked Epic Games, digging into around 189GB of data, including several emails, passwords, payment information from the company’s customers, and even source code data. The news website also informed that the group gave until March 4 for Epic Games to pay an undisclosed amount of money to prevent the stolen data from being leaked.
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However, it seems that the whole ransomware attack was fake. Epic Games has used its official social media profile to confirm that there is “zero evidence” of any successful ransomware attack and explained that Mogilevich did not contact Epic asking for a ransom. Epic Games also revealed that the company investigated the incident, and contacted Mogilevich soon after that, but has yet to receive any proof that an actual attack happened.
Ransomware Attacks Are Getting Increasingly Dangerous For the Gaming Industry
While Epic Games may have not been successfully hit by hackers at this time, ransomware attacks have proven quite troublesome for the gaming industry in recent years. Last year, for example, Sony confirmed a major data breach in its Insomniac Games studio. The information was leaked after Insomniac Games failed to pay $2 million for Rhjysida, the group that performed the attack.
The information revealed at the time included five unannounced titles from Insomniac Games, including a Venom spin-off that is scheduled for 2025, a Wolverine game, Spider-Man 3, a new Ratchet and Clank title, and an X-Men game that would be out in 2030. Personal data from Insomniac Games’ employees was also divulged in the leak.
A few days after Sony’s incident, Ubisoft investigated a possible data breach due to some leaked screenshots of the company’s internal software that were found online. Fortunately, it seems that the leak was not as extensive as the one suffered by Insomniac Games. Before this latest scare, Ubisoft was already targeted by hackers in 2022 and in 2020. Hopefully, game studios will increase their security to avoid potential future breaches, protecting both their projects and personal data from employees and players, as it seems that the attacks will not be stopping anytime soon.
Epic Games Store
A digital video game storefront for Windows PC and macOS created and operated by Epic Games. Originally launched in December 2018, Epic Games Store is both a website as well as a standalone launcher.
