Insomniac Games has released a statement following the massive data breach that the studio suffered and subsequent release of stolen data that occurred earlier this week.
The data breach saw reams of confidential and private information leaked online, after Sony refused to pay the ransom that the hacker group was demanding. This included everything from personal details of employees past and present, roadmaps and contractual agreements that revealed future plans for more Marvel games from Insomniac beyond what has already been announced, and even a playable work-in-progress build of Marvel’s Wolverine for PlayStation 5.
While there’s both newsworthy details that came from this, and certainly plenty of interest in discovering what the studio will be working on for the foreseeable future, one of the overriding sentiments was one of sadness for the studio and the employees that could have their lives disrupted because of this.
Insomniac’s full statement from Twitter reads:
Thank you for the outpouring of compassion and unwavering support. It’s deeply appreciated.
We’re both saddened and angered about the recent criminal cyberattack on our studio and the emotional toll it’s taken on our dev team. We have focused inwardly for the last several days to support each other.
We are aware that the stolen data includes personal information belonging to our employees, former employees, and independent contractors. It also includes early development details about Marvel’s Wolverine for PlayStation 5. We continue working quickly to determine what data was impacted.
This experience has been extremely distressing for us.
We want everyone to enjoy the games we develop as intended and as our players deserve.
However, like Logan…Insomniac is resilient. Marvel’s Wolverine continues as planned. The game is in early production and will no doubt greatly evolve throughout development, as do all our plans.
While we appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm, we will share official information about Marvel’s Wolverine when the time is right.
On behalf of everyone at Insomniac, thank you for your ongoing support during this challenging time.
Understandably, Insomniac has focussed more on the human aspect and impact of the leak, and that everything seen is very work in progress, as opposed to any of the wider plans that came out. We hope that the company has quickly acted to put in place various measures that will protect their employees who have had their data released.
This is far from the first time that game companies have been hacked, with infamous instances from the past few decades including a misguided fan stealing an in-development copy of Half-Life 2 from Valve, and more recently a hacker socially engineering their way into Rockstar’s Slack channels and making off with in-development GTA 6 footage. Hacker groups could view game companies as easy targets for exploitation like this, though this is just part of a spate of ransomware attacks that have targeted healthcare institutions, infrastructure and more in the last few years.
Source: Insomniac
