Bandai Namco May Have Been Hit By Ransomware Hackers

Tough times have befallen Bandai Namco, the popular game publisher known for titles like The Dark Pictures Anthology and Elden Ring. The major company was reportedly struck by a ransomware hacker group, making it the 5th company to come under cyber attack in the last year.

According to a report by VGC, a hacking-centric platform claims that a group known as ALPHV (AKA BlackCat) is behind an attack on the publisher. The group utilizes ransomware, a form of malware that infultrates private systems and collects sensitive data. This could include product info, market plans, or even the personal info of employees or consumers. The hackers can then hold that data at ransom to extort money from the victim.

Bandai Namco has not made a statement regarding these claims. So they are currently unconfirmed.

This is only the most recent in a wave of cyber attacks targeting various game industry companies. Last year, Capcom (Street Fighter, Monster Hunter) and CD Projekt Red (The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077) were victims of ransomware attacks, which led to a complete compromise and potential release of thousands of peoples personal data. Earlier this year, NVidia was also targetted by an attack. And just last March, Ubisoft (Assassins Creed, Far Cry) had a cyber security incident of their own. Even Bandai Namcos own game, Dark Souls, was recently victim in a vulnerability, forcing the multiplayer servers offline until it could be fixed.

Its not clear why there seems to be an uptick in these attacks happening. It might be an increase in effort by hacker groups. It might be a recently discovered vulnerability in security measures making the efforts more successful.

For anyone concerned about the potential leakage and abuse of their personal information, we suggest removing some information from your consoles and accounts. This includes saved credit card details. Inconvenient, but that is the price for security sometimes.