Riot Games gives social engineering attack update

Riot Games detailed today how the recent social engineering cyber attack has affected various titles. This includes League of Legends and Team Fight Tactics. A statement from the company explained how a ransom was requested for an undisclosed amount to reinstate the code taken.

When did this go down, and what exactly occurred? Riot detailed the timeline of events on social media.

Riot Games originally announced on Jan. 20 that a social engineering cyber attack had taken place against the company, and that details would be released soon. Some of which we are now beginning to emerge.

Riot set out to assure fans that no personal or private data such as passwords, or credit cards, were part of the hack. Instead, it was game data that was likely affected in some way.

Players were also assured that the next LoL patch, update 13.2 scheduled for Jan. 25, would still aim to be delivered on time. But, potentially, this update will be without components such as the Ahri update.

Credit where it's due, Riot is providing updates on the attack with regularity. As part of the Twitter post on the official Riot Games account, players have been made aware that their data remains safe; but as anticipated, some game titles were affected. Specifically, League of Legends and TFT. The source code for TFT and League were both taken as part of the attack, and as a result a ransom email was sent to Riot.

"Today, we received a ransom email. Needless to say, we won’t pay," said Riot Games on Jan. 24 via Twitter. "While this attack disrupted our build environment and could cause issues in the future, most importantly we remain confident that no player data or player personal information was compromised."

While Riot Games stressed that the company will not pay the undisclosed amount, it has warned about potential repercussions to player experience. This could potentially spawn in the form of in-game cheats.

Riot promised to monitor the situation of any new in-game cheats appearing, as well as add in anti-cheat software as required. Much of the data obtained through the attack was for new content in development such as game modes; the data in question were reportedly prototypes that will never be released to players.

As a result of the attack, Riot have informed law enforcement about the extent of the attack and the codes that have been stolen. Once an investigation has taken place, Riot says that it will release a report into how the attack and how Riot security failed to act. This will apparently be released in due time once more information has come to light.

Additionally, Riot has also said that League and TFT will post individual updates to explain the attack's effects on the games with updates to come. Further explanations from Riot will explain how this affects the planned patch updates coming.

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