The group responsible for a recent Rockstar Games hack is threatening to release information it stole from the GTA 6 and Red Dead Redemption 2 maker.
Earlier this weekend, an infamous hacking group that calls itself ShinyHunters allegedly dug its way into the developer's cloud servers and extracted, it said, a sizeable amount of sensitive data from the company. The group then threatened to leak the data it purportedly obtained if Rockstar Games failed to pay an unspecified sum.
The hacking group has now told the BBC that its demands haven't been met in time, and as such, the organization plans to publish Rockstar's stolen information online. Exactly what data ShinyHunters has access to is unclear, but following recent reports, the data is likelier to include materials like marketing plans or financial documents instead of anything approaching the realm of GTA 6 spoilers.
Given that GTA 6's marketing was set to kick off this summer, the potential leaks could still throw a massive wrench into Rockstar's plans.
In any case, a Rockstar Games spokesperson confirmed the news this weekend but downplayed the severity of the hack. "A limited amount of non-material company information was accessed in connection with a third-party data breach," the spokesperson said in a statement given to Kotaku, but the incident apparently "has no impact on our organization or our players."
All this drama, of course, recalls the infamous GTA 6 hacks from 2022 that saw countless videos, in-progress gameplay clips, and even source code spill out onto the interwebs well before the company had officially even announced the blockbuster game. With seven months still to go until the game's release date, here's hoping Rockstar workers don't need to deal with another headache.
