Bungie made the claim in an ongoing lawsuit against individuals involved in creating and distributing the cheating software. The developer’s copyright infringement lawsuit against the companies and individuals associated with the cheating software began in 2021. Bungie’s quest to identify previously unnamed developers of the software resulted in this shocking discovery.
Destiny 2 Cheat Logged User Data
Bungie refers to the software as the “Wallhax cheat” in the latest court filings. The filings contain new information that was not present in the 2021 lawsuit. Specifically, Bungie claims that the cheating tool had extensive logging capabilities, including the ability to scan and identify applications of interest. “Some of the logged processes are not stand-alone applications, but are found on browser tabs that the user had open on their machine,” the filings read. “In order to identify these tabs, the cheat must look at the name of every browser tab the user has opened every time the user launches the cheat,” court documents leaked on Twitter read. “In order to these relevant applications, the Wallhax cheat must have scanned the user’s computer memory to identify all of the running applications and logged only those which matched one of the strings it was searching for,” another part of the filing revealed. Bungie studied a log file with 20,868 entries and gave the court examples of personal information logged from web browsers. This included the full names and remote schooling data of students in the ninth grade. Furthermore, Bungie said it found a log containing patients’ web sessions on MHS Genesis, the patient portal for the U.S. Department of Defence (DoD). The developer claims the software logged the healthcare information and also scanned the computer files of active duty military or DoD personnel.
Bungie’s Lawsuit
Destiny 2 is a popular free-to-play first-person shooter online video game developed by Bungie. In August 2021, Bungie filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against two Canadian companies, Elite Boss Tech and 11020781 Canada Inc. The developer claimed that their cheating tool violated the DMCA, the United States’ copyright statute. In June 2022, Elite Boss Tech agreed to pay Bungie a $13.5 million settlement for its actions. Following the settlement, Bungie went after other individuals associated with Wallhax, including cheat sites that distributed the software. The developer used information from cooperating defendants to identify other previously unnamed defendants and bring them to justice. It is unclear if the logging tool was used to conduct surveillance or any activities beyond the scope of the cheating software. Additionally, as the lawsuit is still ongoing, these claims are yet to be affirmed by a court of law or an independent cybersecurity firm. However, the incident highlights the security risks associated with using unknown third-party software. We spoke to cybersecurity experts at Kaspersky earlier this month about a boom in The Last of Us scams. Experts generally recommend staying away from third-grade websites and unofficial versions of games, as they may infect their devices with malware. For more tips, check out Kaspersky’s complete list of safety recommendations for gamers. We also recommend reading our top cyber hygiene tips to learn how to protect yourself online.
