Media company Kadokawa hit by cyber attack

Kadokawa, the parent company of Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, has been hit by a ‘significant cyber attack’.

On Saturday June 8 IT employees discovered a ‘system failure’ affecting the Kadokawa Group’s data center, the company says in a statement. As soon as the hacking came to light, workers tried everything to normalize the manufacturing and distribution process.

“Kadokawa intends to implement measures to minimize the impact on its businesses caused by the incident, by developing alternative arrangements that do not solely depend on systems, such as increasing human resources, for some time to come, while expediting the restoration of systems related to the production and distribution of publications,” the parent company states.

Web services are currently suspended and will be restarted as soon as they become available. The impact on the merchandise business is limited. How this incident affects revenues in the current fiscal year, is unclear at the moment. Shipping has been restored and is working at the usual level.

Kadokawa has launched an investigation to find out whether confidential company data has been leaked. One thing the company can say for certain: no credit card information has been compromised.

Kadokawa is a Japanese media conglomerate that specializes in publishing films, books, manga comics and video games. It’s best known for being the parent company of FromSoftware, the gaming studio that developed the Dark Souls franchises, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Elden Ring.

BlackSuit supposedly responsible for cyber attack

According to FalconFeeds.io, BlackSuit is behind the cyber attack on Kadokawa. The hacking group says on the dark web that they’ve stolen about 1.5 terabyte of confidential data, which they threaten to release today.

The dataset allegedly contains contracts, legal documents, user and employee information, business plans, project data, financial records, and other internal papers.

BlackSuit is a ransomware operation that emerged early April 2023. The group is known for infiltrating organizations, exfiltrating victim data and extorting victims. If they refuse to pay ransom, all stolen information is being sold or made public.

Organizations in healthcare, education, information technology, government, retail and manufacturing industries are the most favored targets of BlackSuit.