Epic Games hacker isn’t a hacker, at all

Mogilevich, which claimed to have breached Fortnite maker Epic Games last month, was due to release the stolen data this week. However, clicking the link to view what was meant to be a trove of personal information and source code instead led to an announcement.

Quoted by Cyber Daily, a spokesperson named Pongo writes, “Unfortunately this link led you to an important announcement of our business instead of evidence of a breached database.

“You may be wondering why all this, and now I’m going to explain everything you need. In reality, we are not a ransomware-as-a-service, but professional fraudsters.

“None of the databases listed in our blog were as true as you might have discovered recently. We took advantage of big names to gain visibility as quickly as possible, but not to fame [sic] and receive approval, but to build meticulously our new trafficking of victims to scam.”

Proving that there is no honour among thieves, Mogilevich apparently sold its fake ransomware-as-a-service tools to eight hopeful hackers. The gang asked for proof of funds in the form of screenshots of crypto wallets – which it allegedly then used to convince other people that it had access to those wallets, making more money in the process.

Pongo says it managed to trick one buyer out of $85,000 after claiming to have hacked drone maker DJI.

“This was done to illustrate the process of our scam,” Pongo said, modestly adding, “We don’t think of ourselves as hackers but rather as criminal geniuses.”

While these claims might also be fabrications (i.e. lies), at this point it’s clear that Mogilevich is not a ransomware gang – or at least, not a successful one.

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