Stalker 2 developer GSC Sport World says that Russian hackers have gained entry to inner check builds of the upcoming FPS Stalker 2: Coronary heart of Chornobyl, and have begun leaking the stolen materials to the general public.
“Our group has recognized a vulnerability exploited by a bunch of Russian hackers attacking the corporate for nearly a yr and a half,” the Ukrainian studio stated on Twitter. “Sadly, they had been capable of entry and compromise a few of our leaked info meant for inner testing of varied sport points.
“As for now, we kindly ask stalkers and people who need to be part of the Zone sooner or later not to have a look at or share any leaked supplies from the sport. Though these supplies are solely used for testing functions and aren’t release-ready, these leaks might break your expertise of exploring the Zone by your self.”
GSC Sport World did not say whether or not this assault is related to the one reported in March, when hackers threatened to make use of the info they’d taken “for blackmail and intimidation,” and there is no approach to verify whether or not the hackers are literally Russian.
However the timeline suits—in March, the studio stated it had been coping with “fixed cyberattacks” for greater than a yr, now “virtually a yr and a half”—and pictures and different information taken in the course of the hack had been shared by the identical account on the Russian social media platform VK.
It is also doable the VK account is just getting used as a distribution channel: One Google-translated message refers to “the contribution of our administrator to the unfold of this leak,” suggesting they weren’t truly chargeable for making it occur. It additionally says “the Individuals had been the primary to search out it,” whereas Daniil Nexus, the group administrator in query, was “one of many first” to run throughout it in that exact group, and introduced in another person to crack the stolen code.
The obvious discovery of a vulnerability being exploited by hackers hopefully means the opening is plugged, but when the hackers are certainly Russian, it is not prone to finish the assaults. As a Ukrainian studio, GSC Sport World is a high-profile goal for Russian hackers and avid gamers, and there is unquestionably a political facet to it. In August 2022 a purportedly unreleased console port of the unique Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl was leaked by an aggrieved Russian streamer sad about, amongst different issues, the studio raising money to assist prepare and equip Ukrainian troopers combating towards the Russian invasion.