Last week Insomniac Games suffered one of the worst data breaches in the game industry. The attackers believed to be members of the Rhysida group gave the Spider-Man maker 7 days to pay an undisclosed ransom. Earlier this week, the group released over 1.7 terabytes of data they illegally obtained during the hack.
Since leaking the internal data on Monday, we have been waiting for an official statement from Insomniac Games to either confirm or debunk the news. However, it was not until Friday, December 22, 2023, that Insomniac broke the silence with a message shared through their official X handle.
“Thank you for the outpouring of compassion and unwavering support. It’s deeply appreciated,” the message began. “We’re both saddened and angered about the recent criminal cyberattack on our studio and the emotional toll it’s taken on our dev team. We have focused inwardly for the last several days to support each other.”
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Insomniac confirmed that personal information belonging to their current and former employee as well as independent contractors were among the stolen data. However, it appears the Marvel’s Spider-Man maker is still not fully aware of the extent of the data breach.
“We are aware that the stolen data includes personal information belonging to our employees, former employees, and independent contractors. It also includes early development details about Marvel’s Wolverine for PlayStation 5. We continue working quickly to determine what data were impacted. This experience has been extremely distressing for us.”
Insomniac compared their resilience to Logan in X-men who bears the moniker Wolverine. The company also confirmed that the breach will not affect the development of the Wolverine game. Also, Insomniac said the game and their plans will continue to evolve as development progresses. In other words, everything that the hackers leaked may change as development progresses.
“While we appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm, we will share official information about Marvel’s Wolverine when the time is right. On behalf of everyone at Insomniac, thank you for your ongoing support during this challenging time.”
Insomniac hackers spilled game release timeline and financial details
From personal information to game development images and financial details, Rhysida’s attack on Insomniac made public information that the game developer would prefer to keep private. The hackers said they released 98% of stolen data to the public meaning they may have sold 2% of the stolen data to anonymous buyer(s).
One of the leaked documents highlighted the timeline that Insomniac has set for the release of their games which includes Wolverine and two other unnamed Marvel games (based on an agreement signed between outgoing Sony boss Jim Ryan and Marvel’s chairperson of entertainment Isaac Perlmutter). Another document also shows that Insomniac made less than $600 from Sunset Overdrive.
That information caused a stir on social media because Sunset Overdrive enjoyed a positive reception. The poor financial performance of the game also hinted at the reason why it may never get a sequel or a reboot.
Cyber Daily reached out to Rhysida to know the motive of their attack. The group confirmed that their primary motivation for the attack was money and that it didn’t take them long to break into Insomniac.
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“Yes, we knew who we were attacking,” a Rhysida spokesperson replied to Cyber Daily through email. “We knew that developers making games like this would be an easy target. We were able to get the domain administrator within 20-25 minutes of hacking the network.”
Sony has launched an investigation into the attack. Last year, Rockstar Games suffered a similar high-profile attack from the Lapsus$ group. One of the key culprits in that attack has now been sentenced to an indefinite hospital order.
