Rockstar Games is facing a new extortion threat after the hacker group ShinyHunters claimed it had breached the company’s secured cloud servers and obtained a large collection of data, according to material visible in the screenshots. The group has reportedly demanded a digital ransom by April 14 and said it would leak the data if payment is not made.
Claim centres on Rockstar’s Snowflake environment
According to reports from Cybersec Guru and Hackread, ShinyHunters posted on its dark web leak site on April 11 that it had gained access to Rockstar’s Snowflake servers. Snowflake is described in the material as a cloud-hosting company and provider that works with many large companies.
The hackers published a message on Saturday asserting access to the company’s data. Any response from Rockstar Games or further confirmation of the claim.
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Access reportedly linked to Anodot breach
The hackers did not directly crack Snowflake’s security. Instead, access was reportedly gained through Anodot, described in the material as a cloud cost monitoring and analytics software service used by Rockstar and other companies to manage cloud data.
Anodot has recently been reported to have suffered a security breach, which may have created a pathway for ShinyHunters to reach data stored in Snowflake. According to the material, the method allegedly used would have appeared legitimate to Rockstar, suggesting the group may have obtained substantial corporate data.
Corporate files feared at risk
They say ShinyHunters has not publicly specified what files or data it claims to possess. However, the breach is believed not to involve passwords or personal player data. Instead, it is said to concern corporate information and assets, which could include contracts, financial documents, marketing plans and other internal material.
ShinyHunters as a group active since 2020 that has typically targeted large companies. Past targets named in the material include Microsoft, Ticketmaster, Cisco, AT&T and Wattpad. The screenshots say the group is known to seek ransom payments or sell stolen data.
The reported breach adds to Rockstar’s history of cyber incidents. They note that in 2022 the company suffered a major hack that led to early GTA 6 gameplay footage and assets being leaked online. That attack, was carried out by a teenager who accessed the company’s Slack chat service and was later sentenced in the United Kingdom.
