Data may have been stolen, and the hacker group is already demanding a ransom, threatening to leak the data otherwise.
Rockstar Games has confirmed that it has fallen victim to another data breach after a hacker group claimed to have obtained a large amount of information from the developer of Grand Theft Auto V. On Saturday, a group called ShinyHunters, which has previously targeted Microsoft, Cisco, AT&T, and Ticketmaster, claimed to have breached Rockstar’s system through an analytics platform operated by a third party called Anodot, which companies use to track cloud service costs.
The hackers wrote that the company must pay or they would leak the data, and claimed this was a final warning to contact them by April 14 before they leaked the data and caused numerous annoying digital problems for them. Make the right decision; don’t be the next headline. Rockstar confirmed the attack in a statement and claimed that it would not affect the organization or players. A Rockstar spokesperson confirmed that a limited amount of non-sensitive corporate information had been accessed in connection with a third-party data breach.
ShinyHunters has not disclosed what data the stolen files contain, but the potentially leaked information may include financial documents, marketing plans, contract details, and player spending data. However, the data breach brings to mind the infamous 2022 hack, during which early gameplay footage of Grand Theft Auto VI was leaked online before the game had even been announced. Ultimately, an 18-year-old was convicted and ordered by a British judge to be placed in a secure hospital. ShinyHunters has previously used media coverage to pressure its targets into paying large ransoms. The group has previously claimed responsibility for the 2020 Microsoft source code theft and the attack on Wattpad, during which they obtained 270 million user records.
Grand Theft Auto VI is currently scheduled for release on November 19, following two major delays. The game was originally planned for fall 2025, but this was later pushed back to May 26 of this year, before Rockstar announced the new November date.
Source: VGC, The Cybersec Guru
