Riot seemed to have suffered a social engineering attack, which has caused some of their data to be compromised. Until they figure out what happened, some content might be pushed back until further notice.
Content creators have been complaining about the state of the PBE build and how it's been impossible to get any new information from it. Over the course of the weekend, Riot revealed why the PBE hasn't been working properly and what that could mean for future content.
While a lot of things can be hotfixed, other things might not be able to ship in time due to the issues that Riot has been experiencing. This attack not only affects League of Legends, but will impact Teamfight Tactics, as well as VALORANT, it seems.
Riot Looking Into Social Engineering Attack
On January 20, 2023 the official Riot Games Twitter sent out a Tweet explaining that some of their systems in their development program had been compromised by a social engineering attack. While players' personal data and information was not touched, it has had an effect on the company's ability to release new content.
A social engineering attack refers to malicious activities which are accomplished through human interaction. It's difficult to find a single formula for what 'social engineering attacks' truly are, since 82% of data breaches involve some form of human contact. Some examples of social engineering attacks are phishing, malware and pretexting.
Was it ShowMaker trying to get onto the Riot servers to buff Mages?
Riot suffered such an attack and has been hard at work to try and find the answers they need to be able to fix their developmental systems again. It's important to note that this will take time and Riot is asking players to be patient as they'll keep them posted.
Andrei "Meddler" van Roon also went to Twitter and stated that they were still planning to ship the Aurelion Sol CGU in LoL Patch 13.3, as planned, which should give fans hope that things will be fixed soon. The Ahri ASU might have to be pushed back a patch though, since things like art changes might take more time.
He did state that nothing from the patch will be scrapped, and things like balance changes can be hotfixed and should be released as scheduled. Riot Phreak has already stated that the buffs to ADC's is something that can be hotfixed, so those are some changes we can expect to be released in the upcoming LoL Patch.