One problem with saving your work to a computer — something billions of us do on a daily basis — is that it's vulnerable to any skilled hacker who decides they want to get hold of it.
That was the case with Sony-owned (SONY) -) videogame developer Insomniac Games, which had more than 1.3 million files leaked on Dec. 19 by hacker group Rhysida.
The group originally threatened to do so on Dec. 12, saying that if Sony did not pay roughly $2 million for the data by Dec. 19, Rhysida would leak it.
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The leak contains confidential content from an upcoming "Wolverine" game as well as Insomniac's "Spider-Man 2," totaling 1.67 terabytes of data.
It also contains an agreement between Marvel and Sony Interactive Entertainment for three exclusive upcoming 'X-Men" games, with the first of the three being "Wolverine." The other two titles were not named. Each game is estimated to cost roughly $120 million to make.
In addition to the game data, the leak contained sensitive internal documents, which included termination paperwork, I-9 employment forms, and screenshots of Insomniac employees' conversations in Slack channels.
Screencaps of some leaked files portray slides that reveal Sony's concern about competitor Microsoft (MSFT) -) after its successful acquisition of Activision Blizzard was completed in mid-October.
Catalogued in a section entitled "Industry major shifts and threats," the document takes aim at everything from the next entry in Activision's popular "Call of Duty" franchise as well as Game Pass, Microsoft's disruptive subscription service, which offers customers access to many brand new games on release day.
Sony is scared of Microsoft pic.twitter.com/uDehet6M8d
— VSlayer (@VslayerV) December 19, 2023
News of the hack trended on X, with more than 37,000 posts highlighting parts of the leak. Another controversial bit states that Sony plans to increase game prices from $70 to $80-$100 by 2027, based on climbing costs of production.
“Yes, we knew who we were attacking," a Rhysida spokesperson told Cyber Daily in a statement via email.
"We knew that developers making games like this would be an easy target. We were able to get the domain administrator within 20–25 minutes of hacking the network. Sony has launched an investigation, but it would be better in the backyard.”
Sony experienced two hacks earlier this year, including one in May that compromised the personal information of thousands of current and former Sony Interactive Entertainment employees.
At the time, Sony offered “complimentary Equifax complete Premier credit monitoring and identity restoration services” to all parties affected.
TheStreet has reached out to Sony for comment.
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