'Watch Dogs: Legion,' a game about hacking, may be victim of a hack

It seemed like just a matter of time before the hack-the-world game Watch Dogs: Legion was itself the victim of a breach, and it might have happened sooner than you expected. According to Rock Paper Shotgun, the ransomware outfit Egregor claims to have leaked the source code for Legion on file sharing sites after threatening to release it in October unless Ubisoft got in touch. It’s not certain if the 558GB of data is authentic, but the group reportedly maintained on a website (now offline) that there was “free access” to the source in Ubisoft’s network, including unprotected passwords and personal data.

Ubisoft said in a statement that it was “aware” of Egregor’s purported leak and was investigating a “potential data security incident.”

Egregor also claimed to have obtained and encrypted data at Crysis developer Crytek, although it’s not clear the hacking group locked down the Watch Dogs material.

If authentic, the hack would primarily threaten the developers themselves if there’s any sensitive personal data. It might not necessarily hurt the game experience, though. As RPS noted, the source code might be most helpful for modders looking to tweak content or the game engine itself. It’s not clear if this would hurt the promised multiplayer update in December, though. There’s no guarantee a leak would include the online code, and it might change enough by the official launch to break any potential cheats.