The indie game maker ‘Gellyberry Studios’ faced a devastating blow as their MMORPG, “Ethyrial: Echoes of Yore,” fell victim to a ransomware attack, resulting in the obliteration of 17,000 player accounts. The attack, executed last Friday, systematically wiped out in-game progress and items, causing significant disruption to the game’s community. Developed by Gellyberry Studios, “Ethyrial: Echoes of Yore” operates on an ‘Early Access’ model via Steam, relying on player subscriptions and community support for ongoing development.
The attackers targeted the game’s main server, encrypting all available data, including local backups, and demanded a ransom in Bitcoin for decryption. Despite the demand, Gellyberry Studios chose not to negotiate or pay the ransom, fearing the attackers might not provide the decryption key even if they did comply. Instead, the team embarked on the manual reconstruction of affected systems and pledged to restore all lost player accounts and characters to the fullest extent possible. The studio took swift action to mitigate the impact on players, promising to manually reinstate lost items, progress, and accounts. In a gesture of appreciation for players’ understanding and support, affected users will receive their original possessions, along with a premium in-game “pet.”
Additionally, Gellyberry Studios vowed to bolster security measures, implementing more frequent offline backups, P2P VPN for remote access, and restricting server access to specific IP addresses to prevent future cyber threats. Despite the setback, the studio stands committed to the game’s community, urging affected players to reach out for manual account restoration via email and emphasizing their dedication to fortifying the game’s security against potential future attacks.
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