😬 A notorious group of ransomware hackers has given Rockstar a tight deadline to pay for stolen data
📅 The ShinyHunters threat has group has given Rockstar until April 14 to pay for data stolen in a third-party data breach
🤷♂️ Rockstar has said the data stolen was limited, and that it had no impact on the player base
💰 This comes in spite of the looming threat from the ransomware hackers that the data was confidential and that it could be leaked or sold online
Rockstar has become the latest to fall victim of a data breach from a group of notorious ransomware hackers, who have given the GTA 6 developer a deadline to pay for stolen data.
The ShinyHunters threat group has given Rockstar until April 14 to pay a ransom for data it stole in a recent breach, threatening to otherwise publish the data or put it up for sale.
Rockstar recently confirmed the compromise in relation to a third-party data breach but says that limited data was accessed, and that the incident “has no impact” on its “organization of players”, as per a recent Forbes article.
The attack wasn’t directly on Rockstar itself, but rather on a “cloud-cost monitoring tool” that the developer uses. It enabled the group to grab authentication tokens to then access another platform Rockstar uses to pass itself off as a legitimate internal service.
The exact nature of the data that was included hasn’t been disclosed, but the ShinyHunters group has stated that confidential data is reportedly at risk.
The group’s notice reads: “Rockstar Games, your Snowflake instances were compromised thanks to Anodot.com. Pay or leak. This is a final warning to reach out by 14 Apr 2026 before we leak, along with several annoying (digital) problems that’ll come your way.”
In the run-up to the release of GTA 6, Rockstar has suffered previous damaging leaks, such as in 2022 when nearly 100 photos and videos of the game were leaked online.
In December 2023, the first trailer for the game leaked some 24 hours before its scheduled premiere, leading to Rockstar releasing it earlier than originally anticipated.
It has been a long road for Rockstar to this point, and the wait for GTA 6 is set to be a further few months, as the game is set for release on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19th 2026.
Up next: GTA 6 probably won’t look as good as the trailers, former dev admits
Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.