On June 27th, 2024, Japanese media conglomerate Kadokawa Group, the parent company of acclaimed video game developer FromSoftware, disclosed that it had fallen victim to a significant ransomware attack. The cyberattack, which was first detected on June 8th, has severely disrupted Kadokawa's operations across multiple business units.

According to Kadokawa's official statement, the ransomware attack primarily targeted the company's data center, impacting key services such as the popular video sharing platform Niconico and related subsidiaries. The full extent of the data breach and potential information leakage is still under investigation, with Kadokawa working closely with external cybersecurity experts to assess the situation.

While Kadokawa did not explicitly mention FromSoftware as one of the affected entities, the gaming studio is just a small part of the conglomerate's diverse media empire. Kadokawa's operations span publishing, film, anime, and other digital services, all of which appear to have been disrupted to some degree by the ransomware attack.

The hackers behind the attack, known as the "BlackSuit" group, have claimed to have infiltrated Kadokawa's network nearly a month ago and gained access to a staggering 1.5 TB of sensitive data. This data reportedly includes employee records, user platform information, contracts, project details, and financial documents. The group is now threatening to publicly release this information if Kadokawa does not meet their ransom demands soon.

This incident is the latest in a series of high-profile cyber-attacks targeting major video game companies. In the past, Bandai Namco, Capcom, CD Projekt Red, and Insomniac Games have all fallen victim to similar ransomware attacks, with the Rockstar Games breach in 2022 leading to the unauthorized release of an early build of Grand Theft Auto VI.

Ajmain is a contributor at The Daily Esports.