Hackers Behind Riot Games Breach Stole League of Legends Source Code

Riot Games says it lost the source code for its multiplayer title League of Legends after hackers breached its internal systems last week.

The hackers also stole the source code of another game, TeamFight Tactics (TFT), and the data code of a “legacy anticheat platform”, Riot Games revealed(Opens in a new window) on Twitter today.

In addition, the hackers sent a “ransom email” to the game studio on the same day, demanding payment to keep the source code private. But Riot Games refuses to submit.

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As a result, it is possible that the hackers may leak publicly or try to sell the stolen source code to the highest bidder. However, both League of Legends and TFT are already free-to-play titles. Copyright protection also prevents other game studios from stealing assets for a game.

According to Riot Games, the real threat is the stolen source code that gives cheaters a behind-the-scenes look at exploiting game mechanics. “Indeed, any exposure of source code can increase the likelihood of new cheats appearing,” the company so(Opens in a new window). “Since the attack, we have been working to assess the impact on anticheat and to be prepared to deploy fixes as quickly as possible if necessary.”

The stolen source code also contains experimental features for the games, but not all of these features may end up in the final product.

So far, Riot Games has only said that the hackers managed to infiltrate the company’s systems through a “social engineering attack”. This likely means the attackers tricked a company employee into giving up their company password or installing malware on their computer.

The incident has temporarily forced the company to delay updates for its games. But in some good news, Riot Games claims that no user data appears to have been compromised in the hack. The company also expects to repair its ability to release game updates later this week.

“We are committed to transparency and will release a full report in the future detailing the attackers’ techniques, the areas where Riot’s security controls failed, and the steps we are taking to ensure this does not happen again,” the studio added. .