League of Legends source code was stolen, hackers want USD 10M for ransom!

The source code for Riot Game's most iconic title League of Legends PC and other games has been hacked and the culprits are demanding huge money.

Photo from the game's website

Riot Games hacked

Riot Games confirmed on their Twitter page about the pressing issue and that the hackers are demanding  USD 10M (around PHP 545M) otherwise they would release it publicly.

The developer's announcement

These hackers sent an email to the publisher saying:

Dear Riot Games, We have obtained your valuable data, including the precious anti-cheat source code and the entire game code for League of Legends and its tools as well as Packman, your user mode anti-cheat. We understand the significance of these artifacts and the impact their release to the public would have on your major titles. In light of this, we are making a small request for an exchange of USD 10,000,000

The hackers also sent two large PDFs as proof of what they are talking about. They also claimed that once the demand is settled, "they would be removing the code from their servers" and "provide knowledge about the breach and offer advice on preventing future attacks."

We do not wish to harm your reputation or cause a public disturbance. Our sole motivation is financial gain, the hackers continued

The release of source code in public or by sale will give both players and developers problems in the future as more cheats may arise. This is due to online criminals don't need to reverse engineer the entirety by having direct knowledge of the game's mechanisms.

We have sent this message to the Directors only and have given you twelve hours to respond. Failure to do so will result in the hack being made public and the extent of the breach being known to more individuals continued from Hacker's email to Riot

Meanwhile, the publisher refuses to pay and said that they are currently investigating the matter.

More statements from Riot

They also mentioned the postponing of releasing patches and updates at the moment and that they are "working very hard on a fix"

This is a developing story.

Stay tuned.

Sources: VICE, Riot Games