DomiNations and Rise of Nations developer (and one-time Kingdom of Amalur co-developer) Big Huge Games has been the victim of a cyber attack. The attack is said to have impacted company data but the personal information of players hasn't been affected.
What's happened in the Big Huge Games cyber attack?
This news comes via a Big Huge Games press release. In the release, Big Huge says that it's still in the process of investigating the attack. We don't yet know if this was a ransomware attack; no perpetrators have been named, and Big Huge hasn't disclosed whether the attackers are asking for a ransom in exchange for stolen data. The team says it's notified the relevant authorities and is still working to figure out how much data has been compromised.
According to Big Huge Games, there's no evidence that any personal player data has been impacted by this attack. This includes info such as addresses, real names, and email addresses, as well as financial data like credit card information. Big Huge says most personal player data is handled by third-party vendors or is stored away from the central Big Huge studio, so there's no reason for hackers to have got their hands on it. The investigation is still ongoing, though, so there's a chance Big Huge will discover more data that's been affected by the attack.
Gaming cyber attacks continue
This is the latest in a string of cyber attacks on gaming studios. Just a few days ago, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red was hit by a ransomware attack in which the source code for several games was allegedly stolen. Capcom was also the victim of a similar attack in late 2020, with many internal Capcom documents and projects leaked as part of the attack. A ransomware group also attacked Ubisoft in September last year. These attacks are, as far as we can tell, unrelated; the Capcom and Ubisoft attacks were carried out by different groups, although the attackers haven't been named in either the CD Projekt Red or Big Huge Games cases.
Big Huge Games is owned by South Korean-Japanese gaming studio Nexon, whose products include PC MMOs like MapleStory and ArcheAge. There's currently no evidence that any Nexon data, or any data of its parent companies or affiliates, has been compromised. We'll continue to bring you more information about this attack as we get it.
How do you feel about the Big Huge Games cyber attack? Let us know in the comments below!
