It’s been a wild week for hackers making off with online game studios’ personal information and utilizing publishers’ companies for their very own acquire. However this time, it’s a significant studio accused of doing the hacking. A bunch of Future 2 cheat makers are suing Bungie for hacking into considered one of their computer systems. They’re in search of a trial by jury, damages, courtroom charges, and for Bungie to destroy the information that it acquired from the hacks.
AimJunkies is a web site that sells dishonest software program for first-person shooters resembling Apex Legends, the Battlefield collection, Counter-Strike: World Offensive, and Future 2. It’s owned by Phoenix Digital Group, which has been battling ongoing copyright lawsuits from Bungie since final 12 months.
As initially noticed by Torrent Freak, the countersuit claims that Bungie had accessed and downloaded information on the private laptop of defendant James Might, who Bungie says is a third-party cheat developer, with out “information or authorization” between 2019 and 2021. As proof, the defendants pointed to the Bungie Manufacturing Doc that had been entered into discovery throughout the ongoing lawsuits, with file location names that come from Might’s personal arduous drive. Kotaku reached out to Phoenix Digital Group to ask in regards to the contents of the hacked information, however didn’t obtain a reply by the point of publication.
Phoenix Digital Group argued that Bungie used the data it obtained to “conduct additional surveillance” on the group, and cites the Laptop Fraud and Abuse Act within the lawsuit. Torrent Freak reported that the 2019 consumer settlement for Future 2 didn’t present Bungie with permission to entry gamers’ private information. Kotaku reached out to Bungie for remark, however didn’t obtain a response by the point of publication.
Phoenix Digital Group additionally claims that an agent of Bungie bought AimJunkies cheat software program in 2020. The lawsuit states that Bungie violated AimJunkies’ phrases of service by decompiling and reverse-engineering the code.
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It’s ironic that the cheat makers are utilizing Bungie’s personal courtroom filings to make their countersuit. Simply final month, Phoenix Digital Group mentioned in a press launch: “Don’t consider every part you learn in [Bungie’s] filings. In reality, don’t consider 90% of what they assert of their filings.”
