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The Guy Behind Two Of League Of Legends' Biggest Hacks [Update: Court Verdict]

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In both 2011 and 2013, the servers of Riot Games, operators of League of Legends, were compromised. It’s easy to think the attacks were the work of a group of sophisticated criminals, but really, much of the work was done by a 21 year-old Australian.

UPDATE: A 2016 court ruling has determined that Duffy did not in fact execute the primary hacks, instead finding him guilty of selling account information and hacking a Twitter account.

Currently out on bail after his home was raided in March, Shane Duffy has spoken with The Daily Dot in a great, lengthy feature about his role in the attacks. Which isn’t something I’d be doing if the Police still had me under investigation and a potential court case was on the way, but that’s why I work here, and not as a mysterious international hacker.

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Duffy seemed somewhat nonplussed about the whole thing when we spoke to him. Released on bail pending further investigation, he laughed about how easy it had been to compromise the North American servers. He said it wasn’t “hacking” at all. While he needed hacking skills for his first attack in 2012, he said, it was only Riot’s ineptitude that was to blame for the 2013 attack.

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You can, and should, read the whole thing here.

The hacker who went to war with Riot Games [The Daily Dot]