Posted in: Games, Microsoft, Video Games | Tagged: AMD, hacker, microsoft, xbox, Xbox Series X

A Hacker Is Holding The Xbox Series X Graphics Source Code Ransom

Published Fri, 27 Mar 2020 10:40:00 -0500

In what is going to be a very interesting plot to a film we have yet to see written, the Xbox Series X graphics source code has been stolen. It's not missing, it's just been hacked. Torrent Freak broke the news this week, starting with the fact that AMD filed at least two DMCA notices against Github. The reason being that the website was housing source code relating to AMD's Navi and Arden GPUs. And for those who don't know what either of those are, just know that the Aeden is the processor for Xbox Series X. Github took down the repository it was sitting in, but not before another hacker alerted AMD that they are in possession of the source code and are holding it ransom.

The Next Xbox Console Will Just Be Called "Xbox" — Credit: Microsoft

The asking price? $100 million. Basically they're offering to sell the code back to AMD, or to whoever would like to pony up the money to do so. AMD responded to all of this with a blog post, the crux of which says "While we are aware the perpetrator has additional files that have not been made public, we believe the stolen graphics IP is not core to the competitiveness or security of our graphics products. We are not aware of the perpetrator possessing any other AMD IP."

The company also said they are working with law enforcement as part of a criminal investigation to hunt down the person responsible. No matter what happens from here, things are going to get very interesting. No matter how good of a hacker you are, there's no way in this day and age you can hold a multi-million dollar company like AMD hostage. Somewhere down the line, one of two amazing things are going to happen. Either AMD and law enforcement catch up to whoever the hacker is and they're going to become an example of modern internet IP theft criminal history. Or, someone is going to pay this hacker a ton of cash for what could be extremely valuable information before a global product launch and they will try to vanish forever. We're kicking back with popcorn to see which happens first.

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