Sony's Insomniac Games Studio Hacked: Wolverine Gameplay, Employee Data EXPOSED On Darknet!

Earlier this month, it was said that Insomniac Games, Sony’s first-party studio behind games like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Ratchet and Clank, was hacked. Hackers reportedly demanded a whopping $2 million in ransom to refrain from releasing the stolen data.

As reported by CyberDaily, the responsible group, named the Ryhsida ransomware gang, has now released a total of 1.67 terabytes comprising 1.3 million files of data because the condition wasn’t met. This data includes clips of gameplay from the upcoming standalone Marvel’s Wolverine game for the PS5, the studio’s future plans until 2023, and even several core assets on the dark net.

The publication further states that the leaked materials, apart from data sets containing level design and character models from Wolverine, also include the company’s internal documents, such as HR I-9 employment forms, termination documents, and even content from employee PCs.

CyberDaily also reached out to the hackers themselves to get their perspective. “Yes, we knew who we were attacking,” a Rhysida spokesperson was quoted as saying by Cyber Daily. “We knew that developers making games like this would be an easy target,” the spokesperson added. 

Moreover, the hackers also told the publication that it was rather easy to hack into Insomniac systems. “We were able to get the domain administrator within 20–25 minutes of hacking the network,” they said.

It remains to be seen how Sony will proceed in the future, given that the creation of first-party exclusives such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and upcoming releases such as Marvel’s Wolverine and Marvel’s Venom, is its key strength, and hacks and leaks of this nature can severely damage the creators.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time that a game developer has been hacked. Last year, prior to the release of the official GTA 6 trailer, hours of GTA 6 footage containing gameplay and the game’s setting, which is Vice City, were leaked. This caused a huge furore online, and Rockstar had to eventually acknowledge that the hack was real.