Rainbow Six Siege Shut Down by Attackers’ Havoc

Over the weekend, Ubisoft apparently lost control of one of its biggest video games, Rainbow Six Siege, as attackers appeared to infiltrate it and seize control of a number of core functions. The new bizarro game operators created a chaotic free-for-all that Ubisoft apparently couldn’t put to rest while keeping the game online.

So the game, a team-oriented tactical first-person shooter sort of like Counter-Strike but with an emphasis on destructible environments, was taken down intentionally on Saturday. As of this writing on Sunday, it still wasn’t back up. There’s no campaign mode for the game, so there’s nothing to play with the servers down.

There’s no official statement on the identity of the alleged perpetrators.

A rollback is currently ongoing and afterwards, extensive quality control tests will be executed to ensure the integrity of accounts and effectiveness of changes. The team is focused on getting players back into the game as quickly as possible. Please know that this matter is… https://t.co/cG4zBIBBGB

— Rainbow Six Siege X (@Rainbow6Game) December 28, 2025

Rather ominously, the X account of the malware code and information repository VX-Underground claims that the Rainbow Six Siege attack coincided with several wider, and potentially more damaging infiltrations at Ubisoft, rumored to include the theft of proprietary code and possibly even private user data, though none of this has been confirmed.

According to Bleeping Computer, there has not yet been a public release of information about the nature of the Rainbow Six Siege attack, and that publication’s reporting has been drawn from reports posted online by players.

How much havoc was it? Well, according to one X user, the attackers turned the ban announcement pop-ups into a sort of meme ticker, making them drip out the lyrics to “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy.

It’s one thing for Rainbow 6 Siege to be completely taken over by hackers

But for them to also be this creative 😭 pic.twitter.com/gsuhCVJmxv

— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) December 27, 2025

More substantively, Bleeping Computer says the attackers took control of player bans and ban reversal, and distributed 2 billion credits in the game’s in-game currency, along with an equally economy-destroying amount of “renoun,” in-game clout points that also function as a sort of currency. All skins and cosmetic items were opened to all players as well.

Credits are sold for actual fiat currency, so, by Bleeping Computer’s math, two billion credits translates to roughly $13.33 million—though it’s doubtful anyone was able to convert that into an actual, real-world fortune.

With their game effectively an asylum run by overtly hostile inmates, Ubisoft took the servers for Rainbow Six Siege, and the accompanying game marketplace, offline while engineers set about putting everything back together. Ubisoft posted on X that players would not be punished for spending the credits the attackers had given them.

➡️ Nobody will be banned for spending credits received. A rollback of all transactions that occurred since 11 AM (UTC time) is underway.

➡️ The ban ticker was turned off in a past update. Any messages seen were not triggered by us.

➡️ An official R6 ShieldGuard ban wave did… https://t.co/zbPYDJQa3O

— Rainbow Six Siege X (@Rainbow6Game) December 27, 2025

The bad news for players, however, is that as of Sunday, engineers were in the process of rolling back all those purchases as part of the repair effort.

The latest X post from Rainbow Six Siege as of this writing says “The team is focused on getting players back into the game as quickly as possible,” and that the “matter is being handled with extreme care and therefore, timing cannot be guaranteed.”

Gizmodo reached out to Ubisoft for information on whether the attack is really more expansive than just Rainbow Six Siege, whether data was stolen from Ubisoft, and whether there is any information yet about the nature of the attack and what vulnerability was exploited. We will update if we hear back.