The developers refused to pay the ransom, but promised players exclusive pets.
On the morning of November 24, hackers attacked the servers of the popular online role-playing game Ethyrial: Echoes of Yore using ransomware. As a result of the incident, the data of about 17,000 game accounts was lost.
Ethyrial: Echoes of Yore is a free-to-play multiplayer online role-playing game developed by indie studio Gellyberry Studios. It is available in an early version on the Steam platform, that is, it is under active development and was created with the expectation of community support.
The attackers completely encrypted all files on the server and local backup media, demanding a ransom in bitcoins for the decryption key. The developers decided not to pay the ransom, but to manually restore all systems-the risk is too high that after payment, criminals will refuse to fulfill the conditions.
Most of the accounts were destroyed, along with characters, collected items, and achievements. In their official Discord channel, the owners promised to do everything possible to return players to their progress, as well as give them an "exclusive pet" as compensation.
The studio plans to strengthen security measures — make more frequent backups of the database in offline mode, restrict remote access to servers, allowing connection only from a certain range of IP addresses.
Although there have been previous cases of attacks on game developers, users were not affected as often and not on such a large scale. Cybersecurity experts once again emphasize the importance of proper protection of personal data in online services and gaming platforms.
One of the most high — profile ransomware incidents was an attack in February 2021 on CD PROJEKT RED, the developer of the popular games Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3.The HelloKitty group claimed responsibility for the incident.
In January 2023, Riot Games, the creator of League of Legends and Valorant projects, became a victim of ransomware. The hackers demanded a $ 10 million ransom, threatening otherwise to publish the stolen source code.
On the morning of November 24, hackers attacked the servers of the popular online role-playing game Ethyrial: Echoes of Yore using ransomware. As a result of the incident, the data of about 17,000 game accounts was lost.
Ethyrial: Echoes of Yore is a free-to-play multiplayer online role-playing game developed by indie studio Gellyberry Studios. It is available in an early version on the Steam platform, that is, it is under active development and was created with the expectation of community support.
The attackers completely encrypted all files on the server and local backup media, demanding a ransom in bitcoins for the decryption key. The developers decided not to pay the ransom, but to manually restore all systems-the risk is too high that after payment, criminals will refuse to fulfill the conditions.
Most of the accounts were destroyed, along with characters, collected items, and achievements. In their official Discord channel, the owners promised to do everything possible to return players to their progress, as well as give them an "exclusive pet" as compensation.
The studio plans to strengthen security measures — make more frequent backups of the database in offline mode, restrict remote access to servers, allowing connection only from a certain range of IP addresses.
Although there have been previous cases of attacks on game developers, users were not affected as often and not on such a large scale. Cybersecurity experts once again emphasize the importance of proper protection of personal data in online services and gaming platforms.
One of the most high — profile ransomware incidents was an attack in February 2021 on CD PROJEKT RED, the developer of the popular games Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3.The HelloKitty group claimed responsibility for the incident.
In January 2023, Riot Games, the creator of League of Legends and Valorant projects, became a victim of ransomware. The hackers demanded a $ 10 million ransom, threatening otherwise to publish the stolen source code.
