In a wild turn of events, Destiny 2 developers Bungie has now been hit with a countersuit from the hacking group AimJunkies and Phoenix Digital.
The Destiny developers are tangled in an anti-cheating campaign that saw the company filing a lawsuit against AimJunkies for copyright and trademark infringement, among other reasons for their cause of action.
The original lawsuit by Bungie was filed last year in the federal court. The lawsuit targeted James May, an alleged third-party cheat developer, and the three managing members of Phoenix Digital, the creators of the Destiny 2 cheating software.
The defendants (AimJunkies and Phoenix Digital) have responded to the amended complaint, not denying any claims of offering ‘Destiny 2’ cheats to customers. Instead, they claim that no laws were violated.
They’ve countersued, claiming Bungie in fact had hacked into May’s PC to see if he was hacking, without permission.
As of recently, Bungie reserves the right to check if player’s computers have any cheating software, but the old version of the Limited Software License Agreement, which AimJunkies and Phoenix Digital agreed to in 2019, didn’t allow their game developers to do so.
Their countersuit also contains multiple hacking allegations, including a section claiming Bungie violated the DMCA by sidestepping the cheat’s protection measures.
Unfortunately, for Bungie, in evidence they had previously provided, they shared they had accessed May’s computer. This was included in the defendant’s countersuit, saying, “the LSLA in effect at all relevant times does not provide Bungie, Inc. with authorization to surreptitiously access files on Mr. May’s personal computer and/or download information from those files without the direct knowledge and express authorization of Mr. May.”
Bungie allegedly gathered information through Mr. May’s computer, potentially gathering intelligence on AimJunkies’ employees.
Despite no legal right to access May’s computer, Bungie did so multiple times from 2019 to 2021. This violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which in essence, is hacking.
