2026-04-14 12:02:20
A hacker group has threatened to release data from Grand Theft Auto VI after launching a cyberattack on developer Rockstar Games.
The ShinyHunters group has given Rockstar a deadline of Tuesday (14.04.26) to enter negotiations after gaining access to the company’s servers, which are operated by a third party.
A post from the group reads: “Rockstar Games. Your … data was compromised … 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. Make the right decision, don’t be the next headline.”
ShinyHunters claim that they have previously targeted major firms such as Microsoft, Cisco and Ticketmaster.
It is the second time in three years that Rockstar has fallen victim to a cyberattack but the developer has played down the impact of the hack.
The company said: “We can confirm that a limited amount of non-material company information was accessed in connection with a third-party data breach.
“This incident has no impact on our organisation or our players.”
ShinyHunters’ demand for Rockstar to pay up was published on the hacking group’s leak site, a typical technique adopted by hackers who threaten to publish stolen data if they do not receive payment.
The group has links to the Com, an affiliation of largely English-language cybercriminals aged between 16 and 25.
Aiden Sinnott, a researcher at cybersecurity company Sophos, said: “They are very similar in terms of their demographic to lots of other groups under the Com umbrella.”
It is not the first cybersecurity breach relating to Rockstar’s long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI – as 90 minutes of in-development footage was posted on GTAForums in 2022 after a teenage hacker breached Rockstar’s internal Slack channel.
The hacker responsible, Arion Kurtaj, was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order the following year, while Rockstar claimed that $5 million and thousands of hours of staff time were spent trying to recover from the incident.
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