It’s been a wild week for hackers making off with online game studios’ non-public information and utilizing publishers’ companies for their very own achieve. But this time, it’s a serious studio accused of doing the hacking. A gaggle of Destiny 2 cheat makers are suing Bungie for hacking into one in all their computer systems. They are in search of a trial by jury, damages, court docket 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 similar to Apex Legends, the Battlefield collection, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Destiny 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 May, who Bungie says is a third-party cheat developer, with out “data or authorization” between 2019 and 2021. As proof, the defendants pointed to the Bungie Production Document that had been entered into discovery through the ongoing lawsuits, with file location names that come from May’s non-public onerous 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 knowledge it obtained to “conduct additional surveillance” on the group, and cites the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act within the lawsuit. Torrent Freak reported that the 2019 consumer settlement for Destiny 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 court docket filings to make their countersuit. Just final month, Phoenix Digital Group mentioned in a press launch: “Do not consider all the things you learn in [Bungie’s] filings. In reality, don’t consider 90% of what they assert of their filings.”
