League of Legends source code hacked

Riot Games says cheaters may become more common in its games after a cyber attack resulted in source code leaks for League of Legends and TFT.

Riot Games, the developer and publisher behind games like League of Legends, TFT, and Valorant, announced it had suffered a cyber attack last week, and now the company says that cheaters could prosper.

The attack came in the form of what’s called a ‘social engineering attack’, which is when a bad actor coerces important information out of an employee, like a password or an access point, and then uses that information to access content without needing to use traditional hacking methods.

Riot gave an update on the situation this week, with the developer confirming that the attackers have obtained the source code for League of Legends, TFT, and a legacy anti-cheat platform that the company used.

The attackers reportedly sent a ransom email to Riot, trying to extort payments from the studio in return for not leaking the source code publicly. “Needless to say,” Riot said, “We won’t pay”.

Riot Games is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Tencent. Picture: Riot Games

Riot admitted that “this attack disrupted our build environment and could cause issues in the future”, but said that it remains “confident that no player data or player personal information was compromised”.

The company also said that the amount of cheats available for the impacted games would likely increase if the source code was exposed publicly. One positive to the situation is that new cheats would require Riot to boost its anti-cheat and security capabilities further, which could cut down on the amount of future exploits too.

Another issue Riot sought to address is that the stolen source code contained experimental features, such as new game modes and other changes. Riot wants players to be aware that, should the source code leak, there is no guarantee any of these features will ever make it into the games.

Riot’s other flagship game, Valorant, is not thought to be affected, but the source code leak could still have an impact on it. Picture: Riot Games

Riot Games says it’s working on a full report on the breach to be released at a later date, and that it’s also co-operating with law enforcement to catch the culprits behind the attack.

Riot Games isn’t the only high profile studio facing cyber attacks in recent years. Last year, dozens of videos of an in-development Grand Theft Auto 6 leaked, with the hacker attempting to bargain for a similar ransom.

An ad that was using leaked GTA 6 footage was pulled late last year, after GTA publisher Take-Two issued a copyright strike against the ad. The ad was published by Coffee Stain Studios for Goat Simulator 3, which has had a history of poking fun at other games in its marketing.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.