League of Legends dev held to ransom over stolen source code

Two LoL characters dressed as robbers flee the scene of the crime
(Image credit: Riot Games)

Riot Games is being held to ransom over League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics source code obtained th🐻rough a recent cyber attack. 

In an posted to Twi🦹tter, the developer explains that it has no plans to pay the😼 demands of a ransom email received earlier today and that the team remains “confident that no player data or player personal information was compromised”. 

“Truthfully, any exposure of source code can increase the likelihood of new cheats emerging,” Riot says. “S💞ince the attack, we’ve been working to assess its impact on anti-cheat and to be prepared🔥 to deploy fixes as quickly as possible if needed.”

Riot goes on to say that the hackers have obtained information on unreleased modes and experimental features, but warns th🦂at there’s “no guarantee” they’ll ever be fit to launch, as much as the developer hopes they will be one day. 

Moving forward, Riot’s security teams will continue working with consultants to ev🅠aluate and audit systems, with a further update to come. 

“We’re committed to transparency and will release a full report in the future detailing the attackers’ techniques, the areas where Riot’s security controls faile𝐆d, and the steps we’re taking to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” the de꧒veloper said.

“W🎀e’ve made a lot of progress since last week, and we believe we’ll have things repaired later🔜 in the week, which will allow us to remain on our regular patch cadence going forward. The League and TFT teams will update you soon on what this means for each game.”

Riot initially about the attack latಞ💃e last week, explaining that the social engineering attack would affect its ability to release content. 

Elsewhere, GTA Online is dealing with a security incident of its own, with a security-related update to come. 

Iain Harris
News Editor, Games

I joined GamesRadar+ in May 2022 following stints at PCGamesN and PocketGamer.Biz, with some freelance for Kotaku UK, RockPaperShotgun, and VG24/7 thrown in for good measure. When I'm not running the news team on the games side, you'll fi𝔍nd me putting News Editor duties to one side to play the hottest JRPG of 20 y🐼ears ago or pillaging the depths of Final Fantasy 14 for a swanky new cloak – the more colourful, the better.