CD Projekt Red (CDPR) is a Polish game developer company founded in May 1994 by Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński.
Based in Warsaw, the company was initially a distributor for foreign video games for gamers in the country, where the founders imported CD-ROM games from U.S. retailers.
What began as a company with a $2,000 capital, CDPR then started developing original games on its own, and created popular titles, like The Witcher series, and the Cyberpunk series.
This time, CDPR disclosed that it has been the victim of a ransomware attack in which hackers had collected “certain data” from the company.
CD Projekt Red wrote that its backups are still intact, and that it has “secured our IT infrastructure and begun restoring the data,” adding that it does not believe the breach contains personal data from players.
Important Update pic.twitter.com/PCEuhAJosR
— CD PROJEKT RED (@CDPROJEKTRED) February 9, 2021
The company also posted a ransom note from the hackers, in which they claimed to have access to source code from the company's most popular games, as well as internal legal, HR, and financial documents.
CDPR said that it would never give in to the demands or negotiate with the hackers, even if that meant the stolen data would begin circulating online.
“We will not give into the demands nor negotiate with the actor, being aware that this may eventually lead to the release of compromised data,” wrote the company
Unfortunately, that prediction was right.
Hackers have reportedly sold game source code and other information from CDPR to dark web forums.
It was cybersecurity firm KELA that first released screenshots of a post on the hacking forum Exploit made by the alleged hackers.
In the forum, they said that they have received an offer for the data from outside the forum, adding that they ended the auction at the request of the buyer.
KELA previously reported that the starting price for the auction was $1 million, moving up in $500,000 increments, with a buy-it-now price of $7 million.
Victoria Kivilevich, a threat intelligence analyst at KELA, explained that it appears all of the files were stolen.
What this means, they leak include source code for Cyberpunk 2077, multiple versions of The Witcher 3, and also Gwent.
All of them were sold in a single package.
Just in: #CDProjektRed AUCTION IS CLOSED. #Hackers auctioned off stolen source code for the #RedEngine and #CDPR game releases, and have just announced that a satisfying offer from outside the forum was received, with the condition of no further distribution or selling. pic.twitter.com/4Z2zoZlkV6
— KELA (@Intel_by_KELA) February 11, 2021
The news was confirmed by cybersecurity account vx-underground, saying that the sale was completed.
Update: we have confirmed the auction has closed. Someone has indeed purchased the material.
Image courtesy of @DrFurfagMD pic.twitter.com/TnQVqTiM5w— vx-underground (@vxunderground) February 11, 2021
At this time when the news broke, it is unclear who the buyer is, or what they intend to do with the files.
It's also unclear who the hackers were.
While still unconfirmed, multiple cybersecurity experts in the industry suggested that the ransomware attack came from a group called HelloKitty. The information was based on the title and contents of the ransom note posted by CD Projekt following the hack.
CDPR declined to comment, and only said that the company is still “actively investigating” the incident.
“We have already approached the relevant authorities, including law enforcement and the President of the Personal Data Protection Office, as well as IT forensic specialists, and we will closely cooperate with them in order to fully investigate the incident,” the company wrote.
Further reading: Cyberpunk 2077, The Most Anticipated Game Of 2020, A Rare Nudity Acception On Twitch
