The Last Of Us Part II has seen several leaks over the past month or so. The leaks were thought to be from play testers (due to the fact that the game is reportedly being play tested out of office at the moment), but it’s now been revealed that the leaks look to have come from hackers.
Jason Schreier (formally of Kotaku) confirmed that he has spoken to two individuals who have direct knowledge of the situation who confirmed that The Last Of Us Part II leaks came from hackers who found a security vulnerability in a patch of an older Naughty Dog game and used this to access ND’s servers.
Other reports suggest that these hackers had access to Naughty Dog’s servers for months, gaining access to older versions of Uncharted and the original The Last Of Us before files for The Last Of Us Part II were put onto the server last month.
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
Sony has independently confirmed to Game Industry that they had identified the source of the leakers saying that they weren’t affiliated with either Sony or Naughty Dog.