Epic Games Ransomware Attack Was Just a ‘Scam Operation’

Last week a ransomware group claimed they had stolen of data from Epic Games which consisted of 189GB of information. This is of course concerning for both Epic games and us as we had no information on what the data included, whether it was employee information or customer information. Fortunately, we don’t need to worry as this all has turned out to not be any concern and just a “scam” aimed towards other hackers.

Epic Games Hack Was a Scam?

As reported by rockpapershotgun, the Epic Games hack has been labelled as a “scam” and the “ransomware” group known as Mogilevich, have confessed that their attack wasn’t real. The claim of having data was simply a ruse to dupe other “hackers” into buying their tools. Via cyberdaily.au, the group made the following statement;

“Unfortunately this link led you to an important announcement of our business instead of evidence of a breached database,” a Mogilevich spokesperson called Pongo said.

“You may be wondering why all this, and now I’m going to explain everything you need. In reality, we are not a ransomware-as-a-service, but professional fraudsters.

“None of the databases listed in our blog were as true as you might have discovered recently. We took advantage of big names to gain visibility as quickly as possible, but not to fame [sic] and receive approval, but to build meticulously our new trafficking of victims to scam.”

Epic Games

These claims do line up with what Epic has already stated with “zero evidence that these claims are legitimate,” so right now there is no concern, but the risks are still there. One thing you are probably wondering is the question of why reveal the scam, why tell everyone about it? Well, the group answered that question;

“Why confess all this when we could just run away? This was done to illustrate the process of our scam,” Pongo said. “We don’t think of ourselves as hackers but rather as criminal geniuses, if you can call us that.”

Of course, being professional con artists, all of what they’re saying should be taken very lightly, the group definitely loves messing people about, including the media.