ShinyHunters says it will leak data stolen from Rockstar Games unless the studio opens ransom talks by 14 April, in a fresh cyber extortion threat aimed at the company behind Grand Theft Auto.
The group posted a message saying, “Rockstar Games. Your … data was compromised … Pay or leak,” and added: “This is a final warning to reach out by 14 Apr 2026 before we leak along with several annoying (digital) problems that’ll come your way. Make the right decision, don’t be the next headline.” ShinyHunters also said it had gained access to company servers operated by a third party.
Rockstar responded that “a limited amount of non-material company information was accessed in connection with a third-party data breach” and that “This incident has no impact on our organisation or our players.”
The warning lands with particular force because it is the second time in three years that Rockstar has been targeted by a cyberattack. In 2022, 90 minutes of in-development footage from Grand Theft Auto VI was posted on GTAForums after Arion Kurtaj breached Rockstar’s internal Slack channel. Kurtaj was sentenced in 2023 to an indefinite hospital order, and Rockstar later said it spent $5m and thousands of hours of staff time recovering from that incident.
Rockstar has a huge commercial stake in keeping the game on track. Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online have made more than $8bn since 2013, and Grand Theft Auto VI has already been delayed once, from an original Autumn 2025 target to 19 November this year. That makes any fresh intrusion more than a security problem for the studio; it is a threat hanging over one of the most closely watched releases in games.
ShinyHunters has previously claimed to have targeted Microsoft, Cisco and Ticketmaster, and has been linked to the Com, a loose affiliation of cybercriminals. Its latest threat shows how ransomware-style pressure is increasingly being used not just to steal data, but to force a public deadline on companies that know a leak could carry more embarrassment than immediate operational damage. For Rockstar, the question now is whether it engages before the clock runs out — or waits to see if ShinyHunters makes good on its warning.
