November 27, 2023 at 03:12PM
Last Friday, a ransomware attack hit the “Ethyrial: Echoes of Yore” MMORPG, resulting in the loss of 17,000 player accounts and their in-game progress. The developers have decided not to pay the attackers and will manually restore the affected systems. Impacted players will receive their lost items and progress, along with a premium “pet” as a token of appreciation.
Key Points from Meeting Notes:
1. Last Friday, the “Ethyrial: Echoes of Yore” MMORPG experienced a ransomware attack that destroyed 17,000 player accounts, deleting in-game items and progress.
2. “Ethyrial: Echoes of Yore” is a free-to-play MMORPG developed by ‘Gellyberry Studios’ and is currently in the ‘Early Access’ phase on Steam.
3. The game relies on monthly subscriptions and community support for its development.
4. Ransomware actors attacked the main server and encrypted all data, including local backup drives. They demanded payment in Bitcoin for a decryption key.
5. The game developers decided not to pay the attackers as they did not trust receiving the decryption key. Instead, they are manually restoring the affected systems.
6. All 17,000 player accounts and their in-game characters are impacted by the incident but will be fully restored by ‘Gellyberry Studios.’
7. Impacted players will receive all their items and progress back, along with a premium “pet” as a gesture of appreciation.
8. The game developer plans to increase the frequency of offline account database backups, implement a P2P VPN for remote access, and restrict access to a specific IP address range.
9. The server became available again late on Friday, and players are requested to create new accounts and request a manual restoration by emailing [email protected].
10. This is not the first time a game publisher has been targeted by ransomware attacks. Previous cases include CD PROJEKT RED and Riot Games.