Last week a ransomware attack on Epic Games was reported, allegedly taking nearly 200 GB of data, but Epic has now announced that the attack was entirely a "scam."

The attack, reported by Cyber Daily on February 28, was allegedly carried out by a hacking group calling itself Mogilevich, presumably adopting the name of notorious Russian crime boss Semion Mogilevich. The group stated that it obtained 189 GB of data in the attack, including "emails, passwords, full names, payment information, source code, and much more," and is offering it for sale with a payment deadline of March 4.

The case seemed a bit suspect from the outset: no specific ransom amount was set, and no evidence was presented that the hack actually took place; Epic for its part said it had "zero" evidence that the claim was legitimate, and that attempts to contact Mogilevich

stating that they had received no response.

Sure enough, when the ransom deadline came, Mogilevich admitted that the whole thing was a scam: according to a new Cyber Daily report, the link allegedly containing the stolen Epic data instead advertised the group's services as "professional scam artists." The message led to a message.

"None of the databases listed on our blog were true as you have recently discovered," wrote a representative of the group calling itself Pongo." We used big names to gain visibility as quickly as possible, not to gain fame or recognition, but to meticulously construct a new trafficking of victims who would commit fraud."

The message explains how Mogilevich used false claims of hacking and "social engineering" to extract increasing amounts of money from his victims. He began by selling hacking services (which never really existed) to eight people for $1,000 each, and when they agreed to pay, the amount was raised to $2,000 each, eventually culminating in Mogilevich's $85 The payment culminated in a payment of $85,000 for the materials Mogilevich took out in the hack of drone manufacturer DJI.

But now the period is over: Migolevich confessed to the nature of his crime and confirmed that Epic was not hacked.

"Our investigation is over," Epic tweeted. 'The group's claims were never legitimate and this was a scam.'

As for why the hacker scammers leaked this, it seems to be a case of "Mogilevich wants to gloat," a classic villain flaw.

"This is what we did to illustrate our con process," Pongo writes. We don't consider ourselves hackers, but rather criminal geniuses."

Pongo added that he believes it "taught a lesson to many people, especially Epic Games" that the hacking and ransom demand reports actually had the opposite of the intended effect: they ultimately "did nothing more than promote us by expanding the rogue network and They did nothing more than promote us by expanding the rogue network."

Of course, as Cyber Daily pointed out, none of that rationale is verifiable, and it is possible that Mogilevich knew Epic wouldn't take him up on it and wanted to gain a little fame while he could. Whatever the reason, and however many people were actually taken in by this scam, it is yet another reminder to be careful out there: as the Russians are fond of saying, "Trust, but verify."