Being the victim of a cyber attack, Riot Games refused to pay the ransom demanded by the hackers. The stolen data is now being auctioned off on the dark web.
Yesterday, Tuesday, January 24, the Riot Games teams announced that they had received a ransom email for the return of stolen data, in which in particular we find the source code of the famous game League of Legends. List price: $10 million. The case is serious for the American publisher. Car League of Legends is the heart of the catalogue. Between 10 and 11 million players connect to the game’s servers every day. Despite this, the Riot Games teams decided not to give in to hackers’ blackmail and ended the negotiations.
Today we received a ransom money email. Needless to say we don’t pay.
Most importantly, while this attack has disrupted our build environment and may cause problems in the future, we remain confident that no player data or player personal information has been compromised.
2/7
— Riot Games (@riotgames) January 24, 2023
Cyber criminals then turned to another solution to make their operation profitable. Five hours after Riot Games denied this, a certain ArkaT auctioned off the League of Legends source code on a cybercriminal forum on the dark web. The bidding starts at $1 million.
© Darknet screenshot
But why do you want a source code?
For the buyer, this source code could have several advantages… monetizable. In particular, it could allow him to bypass the anti-cheating measures put in place by Riot and monetize his knowledge to LOL players or even eSports teams. LOL’s professional circuit is specially designed. For example, the winning team from the last major tournament at LOL walked away with $486,500. Enough to encourage an unscrupulous team to invest in virtual doping…