The infamous hacker group ShinyHunters are at it again. Just last year, they have claimed to have hit insurance company Allianz. A more recent target turns out to be Rockstar Games. The group claimed to have gained access to the company’s servers run by Snowflake, a cloud-hosting company and provider.
Per a report by Hackread, the hacker group published a message on the dark web claiming that it accessed the Rockstar Games instances by Snowflake via Anodot, a cloud cost monitoring and analytics software. It’s something that Rockstar does use, which likely mean that the company’s cybersecurity personnel did not notice the infiltration until it was too late.
Probably worth noting that just a few days ago, BleepingComputer reported that Snowflake was a target of data theft following a security breach at Anodot. This incident is likely the precursor to the Rockstar Games episode.
On that note, ShinyHunters has issued what it calls “a final warning” to Rockstar Games to pay a ransom, or have its data leaked. The apparent deadline for this is 14 April.
In a statement to Kotaku, Rockstar Games has confirmed that it had indeed suffered a data breach. As a result, “we can confirm that a limited amount of non-material company information was accessed”. That being said, the report notes that the leaked info could still contain corporate information and assets. Which, in turn, may consist of contracts, financial documents, and marketing plans, among other things.
But beyond that, the company claims that “this incident has no impact on our organisation or our players”. Which, for the sake of said players, we’d hope it’s true and not just something said to assuage fears – and maintain stock prices. After all, despite the many delays, the company currently plans to release GTA 6 at the end of this year.
(Source: Hackread, BleepingComputer, Kotaku)
