Hackers unlock Gig Harbor escape room’s secrets, demand cash
Aug 17, 2024, 12:14 PM | Updated: 12:25 pm
A wildly successful Gig Harbor escape room was hit by cyber thieves last month. (Photo courtesy of James Lynch, 成人X站 Newsradio)
(Photo courtesy of James Lynch, 成人X站 Newsradio)
For the past nine years, Kelsy Matteson has run the wildly successful Escape Hour escape room in Gig Harbor. Then last month, it was all put at risk, when a hacker let his presence be known.
“He said, I鈥檒l just cut to the chase; I need money,” Matteson told 成人X站 Newsradio on Friday. “I just want to show you I鈥檝e been able to get your intellectual property. He had everything, the layout of the experience, what props we have, puzzles, the codes, everything. We鈥檙e like how in the world can he even have this.”
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Matteson said the hacker got into one of their email accounts. He communicated hiding behind a VPN, which made finding him nearly impossible.
Matteson contacted Gig Harbor police, and an investigation was opened, but Gig Harbor Police Chief Kelly Busey told 成人X站 Newsradio, there just wasn鈥檛 much they could do. So, they transferred the case to the . Matteson hopes IC-3, as it鈥檚 known, will be able to track the hacker, but she鈥檚 not optimistic, and there鈥檚 a lot at stake.
鈥淵ou can sell escape rooms,” Matteson said. “So, if that鈥檚 out there, and everybody has it, that literally takes away our ability to sell that, ever. So, if we had to rebuild it, it would be $40,000 to $50,000, but you have to take into account lost revenue on that. So, losses could reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.鈥�
The hacker sent the stolen information to all of Escape Hour鈥檚 competitors, potentially giving them a competitive advantage.
鈥淚ntellectual property is a big deal, right, because we created all this and to give it to our competitors 鈥� and what was kind of disheartening is do you think any of our competitors called and told us that they got this? They didn鈥檛,鈥� Matteson said.
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Anyone with information about the crime can contact the or Gig Harbor Police at 253-851-2236, citing incident #2416301851.2.
James Lynch is a reporter at 成人X站 Newsradio. You can read more of James鈥� stories聽here. Follow James on聽, or email him聽here.
