Riot Games Compromised in Social Engineering Attack, Suspends All New Releases

Cyberattackers have compromised Riot Games production systems through social engineering tactics, forcing the studio to postpone any releases, the company has revealed.

“Earlier this week, systems in our development environment were compromised via a social engineering attack,” the company explained on Twitter. “We don’t have all the answers right now, but we wanted to communicate early and let you know there is no indication that player data or personal information was obtained.”

“Unfortunately, this has temporarily affected our ability to release content. While our teams are working hard on a fix, we expect this to impact our upcoming patch cadence across multiple games,” the company added.

Gaming companies often find themselves in the crosshairs as this industry is just as vulnerable and targeted as everything else connected to the internet. In fact, numerous high-profile cases have made headlines in the past couple of years, and now Riot Games joins that list.

In the case of Riot Games, the fact that the attackers gained access to production machines is important in itself. Had they not discovered the intrusion, it would have opened the way for a man-in-the-middle attack, as hackers could embed malware in a simple update.

Since Riot Games is responsible for massive titles such as League of Legends and Valorant, among many others, the number of possibly affected users would have been substantial. For now, there’s no timeframe for a return to normal, but the company will certainly keep the community apprised of any new developments.