Insomniac Games hacked, blackmailed with doxxing and game leaks

Longtime Sony developer Insomniac Games has been hacked, and the culprit is threatening to divulge information on its future projects. 

First reported by Cyberdaily, a ransomware attack resulted in a security breach at the Marvel's Spider-Man 2 studio. Along with in-progress screenshots and concept art of its Wolverine game, personal information (like passports and official documents) of employees and Spider-Man actor Yuri Lowenthal were obtained. 

The attack was allegedly conducted by Rhysida, a ransomware operator threatening to auction off all its stolen data from Insomniac by next week. "Open your wallets and be ready to buy exclusive data," the group wrote. "We sell only to one hand, no reselling, you will be the only owner!”

In an email provided to Game Developer, Sony wrote that it was "currently investigating this situation. We have no reason to believe that any other SIE or Sony divisions have been impacted."

A brief history of hacks, both Sony and otherwise

As Kotaku notes, this is the third ransomware attack on Sony this year. One occurred in late September, which reportedly saw all of the tech company's systems hacked by the Ransomed.vc group. A week later, Sony revealed another security breach happened back in May and affected nearly 7,000 current and past employees.

No game developer is a stranger to data breaches, least of all Sony. In 2011, the PlayStation Network was hit with a huge data breach that saw 77 million accounts compromised. The entire platform had to be taken down for over three weeks, and Sony was faced with multiple lawsuits claiming the company neglected to inform players about the breach in a sufficient matter. 

Outside of Sony, perhaps the biggest data breaches this year happened to Rockstar Games. In-progress footage of Grand Theft Auto 6leaked online, and even the game's own reveal trailer was leaked hours ahead of its intended date.