Riot Games delays game patches following security breach

The Riot Games logo
(Image credit: Riot Games)

Top game developer Riot Games suffered a cyberattack that forced it to delay releasing new content, it has confirmed.

In a short Twitter thread that left many questions still left unanswered, the company confirmed that an unknown threat actor used social engineering to attack Riot Games employees and access systems in the company’s development environment.

As a result, the company was forced to delay game patches for multiple games, including the globally popular multiplayer online battle arena - League of Legends (LoL).

TechRadar Pro needs you! We want to build a better website for our readers, and we need your help! You can do your bit by filling out our survey and telling us your opinions and views about the tech industry in 2023. It will only take a few minutes and all your answers will be anonymous and confidential. Thank you again for helping us make TechRadar Pro even better.

D. Athow, Managing Editor

Minor setback

Fortunately, customer personal data is safe, the company believes.

"We don't have all the answers right now, but we wanted to communicate early and let you know there is no indication that player data or personal information was obtained,” the thread reads. 

"Unfortunately, this has temporarily affected our ability to release content. While our teams are working hard on a fix, we expect this to impact our upcoming patch cadence across multiple games.”

Individual game departments also confirmed the breach, BleepingComputer has found. LoL’s team confirmed the delay in patching, but reassured the players that wherever was planned to be released, will eventually be released. 

"This may impact our delivery date for Patch 13.2. The League team is working to stretch the limits of what we can hotfix in order to deliver the majority of the planned and tested balance changes on time still," the devs said. "Other things like the Ahri ASU might have to move to patch 13.3 (Feb. 8), but we’ll keep you updated as we work through this."

The developers working on Teamfight Tactics (TFT), another Riot Games product, said the players could expect a hotfix: "This issue may impact our ability to release the full scope of balance changes planned, but we're working to implement the most meaningful of those possible through a hotfix at our scheduled patch time.”.

Via: BleepingComputer

Sead Fadilpašić

Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.