Cyberpunk 2077 fix delayed because CDPR employees cannot use their PCs

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CDPR has already announced that its next major February patch for Cyberpunk 2077 will be pushed back for a few weeks following the company’s ransomware attack, but it hasn’t explained why. Cynics may have wondered if this delay had anything to do with the hack itself. Gabe Newell already delayed Half-Life 2 for a year after a hacker stole the source code, only to later admit he used the hack as an excuse for the delay he was going to have to announce no matter what. come.

The good news is that CD Projekt Red doesn’t seem to be doing anything so cynical. The bad news, according to Bloomberg, is that the company’s developers are still stranded out of their own desktops due to the ransomware attack. CDPR’s VPN (Virtual Private Network) remains inaccessible more than two weeks after the attack.

CD Projekt Red refused to pay the ransom demands, but apparently could not find an alternative solution to its problem. We are not suggesting that the company automatically pays hackers. If anything, paying these people could demonstrate a viable market for the game developer’s hostage, especially if the attackers could pull it off right before a game was supposed to go gold.

The Bloomberg report also sheds light on the effect of hacking on CDPR developers. Staff were advised to freeze all their accounts and report the risk of identity theft to the appropriate authorities, on the grounds that hackers may have gained access to this information. In addition, they were asked to send their computers to the company’s IT staff to be scanned for malware and security holes.

This is not a good sign

This report, if correct, implies that CD Projekt Red is in worse shape than it suggests. Staff were reportedly told that the attackers “may” have accessed their personally identifiable information. This, combined with the lack of sending in their own systems, could mean that CDPR has yet to identify the attack vector or the exact data stolen.

The initial CDPR hack announcement indicated that the company had retained the services of computer forensics specialists. The vast majority of forensic specialists can also help a business get back online after a security breach like this, including restoring employee access to critical backend systems like the corporate VPN. If they do not have it operational yet, this implies another difficulty with the investigation.

Even if CDPR had backups, there is no guarantee that these backups were not also encrypted. Company offsite or protected backups, if applicable, may be old or incomplete. Ransomware attacks can be notoriously difficult to defend without a robust backup strategy. Hopefully the delay is due to a delay in investigation, not a lack of proper safeguards. If CDPR is unable to decrypt its volumes, it will have no choice but to pay the ransom or restart the job from whatever it can tinker with.

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