Report: Outlast Developer Red Barrels Hacked; Over 1.8TB of Data Stolen Including Source Code of Games

Montreal-based studio Red Barrels, largely known for developing horror franchise Outlast, has been hacked. While the studio made an announcement earlier today that it was contained, the data breach seems to be larger than what’s made public.

First off, here’s the announcement from Red Barrels (who has since made their X account private/locked):

The Red Barrels team regrets to announce that its internal IT systems were recently impacted by a cybersecurity event, involving access to some of its data. As soon as the event was detected, measures were deployed to secure the systems and the information contained therein. A group of leading external cybersecurity experts has been mandated to conduct an in-depth investigation into the incident. We also notified stakeholders potentially affected by the event and the relevant authorities. As a precautionary measure our employees have been offered appropriate support.

With the investigation now completed and the security event contained, we want to reassure you that our players have not been impacted by the event.
The hit on our production timeline has been significant. We will do our best to follow our roadmap but unfortunately, some things will have to be delayed. We’ll share a more detailed update on that as soon as we can.

We take this event and the security of information within our care very seriously. Faced with a constantly evolving cyber threat, the studio will continue to implement appropriate measures guided by best practices to ensure a secure environment for our employees, partners and players.
We appreciate the support of our incredible community as we focus on the future of “The Outlast Trials.”

The Red Barrels Team

According to someone with knowledge about the situation who wishes to remain anonymous (for obvious reasons), the hacker group behind it is known as “Nitrogen,” and they seem to be a newly formed group. Per the files list shared to MP1st, the hack involves credit card info, HR stuff, game builds, and full source code for at least Outlast 1 and Outlast 2.

For obvious reasons, we won’t share the info that was shared to us, but according to the person we’ve communicated with, the total file size that was breached was at 1.8TB, and there are a file list of 1.5 million rows of files! We were told that the hacker group is asking for a still-undisclosed amount of money or the files will be made public. This isn’t the first time a video game studio was the target of ransomware attacks, as the most high profile video game hack in recent memory is Insomniac Games in December of 2023. Sony, which is the parent company of Insomniac, refused to pay the ransomware, and in turn, the hacker group released a load of files across the internet.

We’ve reached out to Red Barrels for a statement on this ransomware attack, and will reply if we hear anything back.

For those that play Outlast Trials, Red Barrels has confirmed that there will be a delay of “some things” that were revealed in the roadmap, though nothing specific was shared so far.

(Editor’s Note: We originally mentioned Red Barrels as a French studio, and we have since corrected this error).

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