Hackers Release Stolen Records After GTA-Maker Rockstar Games Refuses To Pay Ransom. Check Details

Hacking group ShinyHunters on Monday (Apr 13) released approximately 80 million business records stolen from Rockstar Games after the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) developer refused to pay a ransom. The group, which gained access through a third-party analytics tool, had previously threatened to leak the data if its demands weren't met. Despite the leak, Rockstar assured fans that no sensitive player information was compromised.

The breach was traced to Rockstar's Snowflake servers and reportedly gained through a vulnerability linked to analytics company Anodot. Rockstar, however, downplayed the impact and refused to pay the ransom.

"We can confirm that a limited amount of non-material company information was accessed in connection with a third-party data breach," a Rockstar Games spokesperson said.m "This incident has no impact on our organisation or our players."

The leaked data largely contains information about in-game revenue and purchase metrics, player behaviour tracking and ​game economy data for the popular GTA Online ​and Red ⁠Dead Online titles. According to a report in PC Gamer, GTA Online earned $9.6 million per week between September 2025 and April 2026, delivering an annualised estimate of just under $500 million per year. Meanwhile, Red Dead Online pulled in average weekly revenues of more than $500,000 per week between June 2024 and April 2026, resulting in an annualised estimate of roughly $26.4 million per year.

The data leak also highlighted why Rockstar might not be hurrying to launch a PC port for GTA VI, scheduled to release on gaming consoles later this year. GTA Online data reveals that PS5 users dominate the player base with nearly 3.5 million monthly active users and $4.5 million in weekly bookings. In contrast, PC engagement is significantly lower, with roughly 894,000 weekly active users and just over $264,000 in weekly bookings.

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Previous Hacking

This is not the first instance when Rockstar has suffered a serious data breach. In 2022, an 18-year-old British hacker called Arion Kurtaj leaked 90 minutes' worth of in-development footage of GTA VI after slipping through Rockstar's internal Slack channel.

In 2023, Kurtaj was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order for hacking into the company and stealing data, source code and video clips of the unfinished GTA 6 game.