A group of hackers behind Capcom’s 2020 leak, which revealed the preannounced titles of Resident Evil 4 Remake, Street Fighter 6, Dragon’s Dogma 2, and more, have been arrested by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), as first reported by VGC.
The arrests were made of key members of the ransomware group known as Ragnar Locker, which “made a name for itself by attacking critical infrastructure across the world, having most recently claimed the attacks against the Portuguese national carrier and a hospital in Israel,” says Europol.
Arrests were made in 11 countries by Europol in collaboration with law enforcement and judicial authorities, with the “key arrest” of Ragnar Locker’s assumed figurehead in Paris while his home in Czechia was searched. Five other suspects were also interviewed in Spain and Latvia.
“This investigation shows that, once again, international cooperation is the key to taking ransomware groups down. Prevention and security are improving. However, ransomware operators continue to innovate and find new victims,” Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre head, Edvardas Šileris, said in a statement.
Additionally, Ragnar Locker’s infrastructure based in the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden was taken down, meaning the actual website taking credit for the leak no longer exists. The digital attack on the game publisher didn’t see Capcom’s leaked game titles planned to be released years after the leak, but the group also stole 1 TB of customer and current/former employee data, including names and addresses.
Those affected comprised of 15,649 accounts and 390,000+ customers and business or other collaborative parties. Ragnar Locker’ was ransoming Capcom $11 million in Bitcoin for the safe return of the stolen files; if no exchange were made, then the data would be either released or sold off elsewhere.
Some of the notable Capcom games initially listed in the leak have been pretty silent, including Final Fight Remake, Powerstone Remake, and Monster Hunter 6.
