In late April, the Last Of Us 2 massive leak related to the main part of the story was circulated online ahead of the game’s June release. Rumors at that time were that a disgruntled employee of Naughty Dog is behind this leak, but Sony has put end to this.
A representative from Sony has confirmed that leakers are not affiliated with the Naughty Dog or Sony Interactive Entertainment.
With the false rumors down, the renowned reported Jason Schreier has shared how the leaks came.
“OK: After talking to two people with direct knowledge of how TLOU2 leaked as well as some Naughty Dog employees, I have a good idea of what happened,” says Schreier. “Short version: hackers found a security vulnerability in a patch for an older ND game and used it to get access to ND’s servers.”
OK: After talking to two people with direct knowledge of how TLOU2 leaked as well as some Naughty Dog employees, I have a good idea of what happened. Short version: hackers found a security vulnerability in a patch for an older ND game and used it to get access to ND’s servers.
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) May 3, 2020
He also commented about the state of leaked footage.
“I think the footage that leaked is from devs playing an early build (I haven’t watched it). Most importantly, rumors of this being an act of protest by a contractor whose pay was robbed are not true. (ND actually extended pay and healthcare benefits for contractors due to covid)”
I think the footage that leaked is from devs playing an early build (I haven’t watched it). Most importantly, rumors of this being an act of protest by a contractor whose pay was robbed are not true. (ND actually extended pay and healthcare benefits for contractors due to covid)
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) May 3, 2020
A twitter user named @PixelButts has explained the whole incident in a series of tweets.
Every ND game has a "final" patch that is pushed to the game that contains an Amazon AWS key, that when paired with a secret bucket ID it will give full access to the server's contents.
Theres a different key and bucket ID per game, this is important
— PixelButts (@PixelButts) May 3, 2020
Check his twitter handle for the full rundown.
In short, we can say that hackers managed to found a vulnerability in Naughty Dog’s server though an old patch which led to all this.
