The catastrophe of the Insomniac hack goes way beyond leaked games
On Dec. 12, notorious ransomware group Rhysida announced it was holding a mass of Insomniac Games data hostage. If Insomniac Games wanted to keep the information from being released, it would have to pay up. Rhysida wanted 50 bitcoin (roughly $2 million) for the data — and it was willing to take that from anyone who wanted it, via an auction on its dark-web site. When the imposed seven-day deadline passed without a buyer, Rhysida posted most of the hacked data online — a massive 1.67 TB that contains more than 1.3 million files, according to cybersecurity website CyberDaily.
The data was uploaded in three separate parts, each one organized in a data catalog with an interface similar to Microsoft’s File Explorer. These files include lots of in-development materials from Insomniac’s upcoming Wolverine game, including design documents, casting information, and level designs. In-progress gameplay from Marvel’s Wolverine started to spread quickly, as did other information about the studio’s partnership with Marvel. It’s a devastating and unprecedented leak of game information, similar in scope to last year’s Grand Theft Auto 6 breach. Adam Marrè, chief information security officer at cybersecurity company Arctic Wolf and former Avalanche Software game developer, told Polygon that the Insomniac breach “appears to be one of the more significant breaches in the gaming industry.” Jonathan Weissman, a principal lecturer at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Department of Cybersecurity, told Polygon that the cyberattack and subsequent leaks are “completely unprecedented.”
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But the Insomniac leak includes far, far more than just game assets. Effectively, hundreds of employees may have been doxxed.
“First, there are files
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