Someone has managed to hack Polish publisher CDProjekt, and they claim to have stolen the source code for Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, and GWENT. CDProjekt released a statement on Twitter earlier this week acknowledging that they were the victim of a cyber attack in which “some of [their] internal systems have been compromised”. They also stated in no uncertain terms that they would not make a deal with the hackers. You can read their full statement and the ransom note below:
A follow up Tweet from CDProjekt directed towards ex-employees said that there didn’t seem to be any evidence that employee data was accessed, but recommended caution. Although social media posts abounded pointing to angry gamers as the culprits of the hack, cybersecurity expert Fabian Woser tweeted that this was likely done by a known ransomware group called ‘HelloKitty’. That’s the same group of hackers that targeted Brazillian energy company CEMIG a few months back.
The hacker or hackers made good on their threat today, releasing the source code for GWENT on a well-known hacking forum. All that now remains online are images of the supposed source code folders, though some publications claim to have downloaded the files.
The GWENT source code files
In today’s leak, a readme file states that the next leak will be tomorrow, February 11th. Yet the hackers are also apparently trying to sell the entirety of the hacked data at the price of $1,000,000 USD (or a buy-it-now price of just 7 million). It’s hard to imagine who would be willing to do business with the hackers besides CDProjekt themselves; the argument could certainly be made that just hiding potentially incriminating internal documents could be worth a million bucks to the Polish publisher. The forum post by the hackers suggests that the stolen data includes “CD Projekt RED offenses”, and given the company’s recent issues and legal troubles, the potential for disaster is real.
So far, the news surrounding the hack hasn’t hurt CDProjekt; their stock closed Tuesday down only 4.19%, and has held steady on Wednesday. That being said, we won’t know how bad this ends up being for CDProjekt until the rest of the files are released, including the supposedly incriminating internal documents.
Do you feel bad for CDProjekt, with their recent run of difficulties? Are you rooting for the hackers? Let us know in the comments!
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DanielD
Unabashed FromSoftware fanboy still learning to take his time with games (and everything else, really). The time he doesn't spend on games is spent on music, books, or occasionally going outside.
