Personal data of Spike Chunsoft staff may have been leaked in ransomware hack

The personal data of Spike Chunsoft employees may have been compromised in a ransomware hack that took place last week.

Kadokawa, which also owns FromSoftware, was hacked last week by ransomware gang BlackSuit, which claimed to have private information on the company’s employees, and threatened to publish it if it wasn’t paid enough.

Now, as reported by Automaton, Kadokawa has made a statement saying the personal data of all employees working at its subsidiary Dwango has likely been leaked online.

Dwango is a telecoms and media company with numerous subsidiaries of its own, including Spike Chunsoft.

Kadokawa said the leak likely included the personal information of all Dwango employees, internal documents and personal information on some employees from affiliated companies.

Founded in 1984 as Chunsoft and merged with Spike in 2012, the studio was responsible for the development of the first five Dragon Quest games.

In recent years, it’s become better known for the Danganronpa and Mystery Dungon series of games.

It’s also currently working with Bandai Namco on the fighting game Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero.

Although Kadokawa also owns Elden Ring studio FromSoftware, there’s no indication yet that it’s been affected by the leak.

Last week ransomware gang  BlackSuit posted a message on the Dark Web claiming to have “gained access to very personal information regarding Japanese citizens” related to Kadokawa.

“Those people would definitely like to keep the data related to their private life confidential, no one would like to see ‘things they are doing in the night’ going public, including their emails and browsing history,” it threatened.

“Right now the confidential life details of many Japanese citizens depend upon Kadokawas’ management decision. We dont think that Kadokawa’s top management would like to spend the following few months bending in excuses.

“Such exercises do not fit them at all. It would be much easier to pay and keep moving forward for such a company as Kadokawa is.”