Epic Games says “zero evidence” that ransomware claims are legitimate

Group is claiming to hold 189GB of internal data

Epic Games has responded to claims by a ransomware group, which stated that it had hacked the company and stolen around 189GB of data including emails, passwords, and source code.

“We are investigating but there is currently zero evidence that these claims are legitimate,” the company stated. “Mogilievich has not contacted Epic or provided any proof of the veracity of these allegations. When we saw these allegations, which were a screenshot of a dark web webpage in a Tweet from a third party, we began investigating within minutes and reached out to Mogilevich for proof. Mogilevich has not responded.”

Fortnite developer Epic Games has allegedly lost data to a ransomware group / Epic Games

CyberDaily first reported the hacking claims today, showing the group’s statement that included a deadline for Epic Games to pay an unspecified amount of money until March 4, 2024, if it didn’t want the data to be sold to someone else. As the initial report and Epic’s statements pointed out, the group has so far failed to provide any actual proof of its exploit.

Last year’s hack of Insomniac Games by a different ransomware group, which resulted in a leak of massive amounts of internal data, including development pipelines, business files, and even a playable Marvel’s Wolverine build, did not have any such uncertainty attached to it, as the group provided evidence for its claims right from the beginning. Insomniac ignored the ultimatum that the hackers set, which made them dump the entire haul online.

Sometimes, of course, companies prefer to claim that any breaches of their infrastructure didn’t happen or weren’t as bad as thought, only to admit a few months down the road that it actually had been a big deal, but it’s difficult to say into which category this particular scenario falls. For the moment, it’s Epic Games’ word against that of the ransomware group.