'This experience has been extremely distressing': Insomniac shares a statement in response to catastrophic ransomware attack, including hopes for Wolverine's future

22.12.2023 - 16:48 / pcgamer.com

Last week, reports began to emerge that Insomniac Games had been the victim of a ransomware attack that had seen details of an upcoming Wolverine game (as well as personal information of several developers) revealed to the public. 

Ransomware group Rhysida demanded that Insomniac give them roughly $2 million in BitCoin, or it would release the information stolen in the hack—as the ransom date passed, it followed through with the threat. The group released over a terabyte of data onto the internet, composed of millions of files. 

This includes a development roadmap stretching into 2032, footage and files from said Wolverine game, business details and personal information on Insomniac employees. Today, Insomniac has posted an official response to Twitter.

«We're both saddened and angered about the recent criminal cyberattack on our studio and the emotional toll it's taken on our team. We have focused inwardly for several days to support each other … this experience has been extremely distressing for us.» 

As Rick Lane wrote earlier in the week, this is beyond a few scraps passed on by an employee's family member—this is a serious crime, enacted by a ransomware group, with severe consequences for the development team. 

The threat posed by attacks like this are real.Back in August a court ruling revealed that Destiny 2's team had received slur-laden demands via voicemail, with one threat indicating an employee's address had been compromised: «A person using the same telephone number as the one used to issue the torrent of threats and abuse had a pizza delivered to the employee's house, indicating that they knew where the employee and his partner lived.» 

This attack risks similarly compromising the studio's safety. It would be irresponsible and naive to underestimate the lengths to which bad actors can (and do) go to in pursuit of a perceived grudge—especially when over a terabyte of data is currently being raked through by the internet at large.

In regards to the Wolverine leak, the studio writes: «Marvel's Wolverine continues as planned. The game is in production and will no doubt evolve throughout development, as do all our plans. We will share official information about Marvel's Wolverine when the time is right … on behalf of everyone here, thank you for your ongoing support during this challenging time.»