A few days ago, the videogames company, CD Projekt, which is behind Cyberpunk 2077 , reported that it had fallen victim to a ransomware attack. It is said that the “ HelloKitty ” ransomware group is behind the attack .
According to CD Projekt's own statement, hackers encrypted the company's network and stole files.
“Unknown criminals gained unauthorized access to our internal network, collected some data belonging to CD Projekt and left a ransom note, which has been published to the public. Although some devices on our network have been encrypted, backups data remain intact. We have already secured our IT infrastructure and have begun restoring the ,” CD Projekt said. The hackers threatened to leak the stolen data within 48 hours if they did not receive the money they were demanding, but the company refused to negotiate and pay the ransom.
Among other things, hackers stole the source code for Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, and Gwent from CD Projekt's servers and apparently managed to successfully sell it. The amount they received in return is not yet known.
The hackers, therefore, decided to fulfill their promise and so the day before yesterday they started an auction on a Russian hacking forum on the dark web.
As video game site IGN, the auction has already closed because the ransomware gang received a “satisfactory offer” from someone outside the forum. It is also said that the buyer made a deal with the hackersnot to resell the source code or leak it. If this is true, then it is likely that the buyer does not want the source code to leak in order to protect CD Projekt, or wants to keep it for malicious purposes.
When the auction began, the starting bid was set at $ 1 million, while if someone wanted to get it immediately, they would have to pay $7 million. It is said that the person who was willing to pay that $7 million, or even more, was found. We may never know the details of the deal and the final amount that the ransomware gang.
Source: PCMag
