Cyberpunk 2077, HelloKitty is responsible for the attack on CD Projekt RED

We recently reported that, unfortunately, the well-known software house CD Project RED, author of titles such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and the brand new Cyberpunk 2077, was the victim of a cyber attack that led to the theft of the source codes of various products. of the Polish company, including an unreleased version of The Witcher 3, as well as the encryption of devices on its network. Later, the perpetrators of this gesture demanded a ransom from the company to prevent the data from being made available to the general public.

Apparently, according to Fabian Wosar of Emisoft, it was the group known as "HelloKitty" for having perpetrated this illegal action. According to reports from colleagues at Bleeping Computer, the group has been active since last November and has targeted other large companies, such as the Brazilian electricity company CEMIG. Once launched, the “HelloKitty” ransomware repeatedly executes the “taskkill.exe” command to terminate all processes associated with security software, email servers, database servers, backup software and account management software, such as QuickBooks. Then, it starts encrypting the files on your computer, adding the .crypted extension to the file name. In case "HelloKitty" encounters a locked file during its execution, it will use the Windows Restart Manager API to automatically close Windows processes or services that are holding the file open.

Each HelloKitty executable is customized according to the victim with a text file, usually called "read_me_unlock.txt", which explains what data has been stolen, as well as containing a URL to the dark web that companies affected can use it to contact the group and negotiate the amount of money to be paid. CD Projekt RED has no intention of complying with the requests of its blackmailers, even if this could lead to the publication of sensitive data on the network, and has already taken all necessary measures to restore the data backups, as well as reporting the fact to the authorities. competent.

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