The last thing you want before launching a massive, next-gen open world game is an appropriately dystopian next-gen hack to go with it. But that’s the nightmare facing Watch Dogs: Legion.
Back in October, we reported how a ransomware group called “Egregor” claimed it had gained access into Ubisoft and Crytek’s private networks. At the time, the ransomware group claimed that they had access to Watch Dogs: Legion‘s source code, and threatened to leak it online if their demands weren’t met.
However, their threats came with a major “but”. The group were only prepared to release 20MB of data from Ubisoft’s networks initially, casting doubt as to how much access they’d gained into Ubisoft’s network.
This week, however, the threats look very real. A 558GB dump of data is floating around private trackers and sites online, according to DSO Gaming and numbers reports on social media. (For obvious reasons, I won’t be linking to the source code directly in this story.)
Ubisoft have supplied a statement to several outlets, including Eurogamer and Rock Paper Shotgun, which says the following:
We are aware of the group’s claim and are currently investigating a potential data security incident.
Which, honestly, is what you’d expect from the company at this point. Things are still being investigated and the full extent of the intrusion is being uncovered, so it’s hard for Ubisoft to say more until they have details.
For their part, Egregor left this message on their portal:
This developer if nominated not just for Hole of the Month. But also for the Clown of the Month Award. We found source codes in free access in the main network. Passwords in the doc files without any protection, all the employees and developers data and personal information, contract, game engines and a lot of more.
Even if it’s not full access to the game’s source code, this much data hitting the net opens up a ton of possibilities. Modders will have an absolute field day with the game, not just from direct access to all sorts of assets but from the ability to continue transforming the Legion experience.
It’ll also probably be helpful for those keen to mod or tinker with older Ubisoft games work, particularly Watch Dogs and Watch Dogs 2. But a file dump of this size might not just contain information related to Ubisoft’s internal work. It’s possible that some documentation from Sony, Microsoft or third-party library developers could be included in the code as well, given the sheer size of the data dump.
Also, it’s just kind of ironic that a game built around hacking then gets hacked. For what it’s worth, the group hasn’t made any public claims about Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, so the damage appears to be limited to Ubisoft’s virtual London for now.
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