Rainbow Six Siege Servers Restored After Major Hack: How Ubisoft is Handling Billions in Fake Currency and Random Bans

For the global Rainbow Six Siege community, the 2025 holiday weekend transformed from a festive gaming session into a scene of digital chaos. Players logging in on Saturday, December 27th, were met not with routine matches, but with accounts in states of impossible disarray. Some found themselves inexplicably banned, while others were freed from previous sanctions. Most staggering were the players who opened their inventories to discover they had been credited with vast sums of R6 Credits and adorned with ultra-rare skins they never purchased.

This unprecedented event—widely reported by players as a hack—triggered a swift and drastic response from Ubisoft: a complete takedown of the Siege servers for over a day. As servers now come back online, the gaming world is left to dissect a monumental security incident. What exactly happened during this holiday disruption? How is Ubisoft attempting to repair a compromised in-game economy? And what does this severe event reveal about the stability of a live-service titan nearly a decade into its run?

The Holiday Incident: A Timeline of Chaos

The disruption began unassumingly on Saturday, December 27, 2025. Ubisoft’s initial public acknowledgment pointed to an issue affecting Rainbow Six Siege, but the reality players faced was far more severe than typical server instability.

Across social media and gaming forums, player reports escalated rapidly. Accounts were hit with random bans and unbans, upending the game’s disciplinary system. Defamatory messages, which Ubisoft later confirmed were not sent by its staff, appeared in-game. The digital loot tables were turned upside down as players reported receiving legendary and ultra-rare weapon skins without any transaction.

The peak of the surreal event was the economic disruption. Players discovered their accounts credited with astronomical sums of R6 Credits, the game’s premium currency. Reports of "billions" of credits flooded in, with one verified case highlighting a deposit of 2 billion credits. Faced with a system where core account functions—bans, inventory, and currency—appeared to be under external control, Ubisoft’s only recourse was decisive action. The publisher took the entire Rainbow Six Siege infrastructure offline throughout Saturday and Sunday, plunging the community into a forced hiatus.

The Staggering Scale of the Disruption

To understand the severity, one must grasp the scale of the apparent economic sabotage. The 2 billion R6 Credits dumped into a single account represents a theoretical value of approximately $13.3 million (£9.9 million) if purchased legitimately. This wasn't a minor glitch; it was a direct injection of counterfeit capital designed to destabilize the game’s core economy.

The incident’s impact went far beyond fake money. By manipulating the tools that control bans and unbans, the perpetrators undermined player trust in the game’s security and fairness systems. The forced distribution of rare skins devalued exclusive items that players earn or purchase over years.

A critical casualty was the Siege Marketplace, the in-game hub for buying, selling, and trading cosmetics. It was forced offline, disabling a critical engine of player engagement and a significant revenue stream for Ubisoft. The timing amplified the damage exponentially. Occurring during the key Christmas holiday period—a time of high player activity and in-game spending—the disruption delivered a simultaneous financial and reputational blow, setting the stage for Ubisoft's unprecedented countermeasure.

Ubisoft's Damage Control: The Great Rollback

In response to this digital crisis, Ubisoft deployed its most powerful tool: the full server rollback. The company announced it would revert all transactions starting from 6:00 AM ET on December 27, 2025, effectively using a "save state" to wipe the slate clean from the moment the disruption began.

A crucial and player-friendly element of this response was the explicit assurance that no players would be banned for spending the illegitimately obtained credits during the incident window. This policy acknowledged that players logging into a compromised economy could not be held responsible for its state.

As of the evening of Sunday, December 28, main game servers have been restored, though players should expect login queues as the system stabilizes. The path to full normalcy, however, is longer. The Marketplace remains suspended "until further notice," and Ubisoft has announced a two-week period for ongoing "investigations and corrections." This indicates that the clean-up operation is granular, likely reviewing individual accounts affected by ban manipulations and residual inventory issues.

Exposed Vulnerabilities and the Path Forward

While the rollback addresses the immediate symptoms, the incident exposes critical questions about Siege’s live-service infrastructure. As journalist James Lucas noted, the event reveals a "really big vulnerability," demonstrating that with access to certain backend tools, malicious actors can cripple a game's economy and social systems. The need to take the Marketplace offline indefinitely is a stark testament to the complexity of untangling this incident.

Ubisoft moved quickly to contain wider speculation. Reports of a broader attack compromising data on future, unannounced Ubisoft games appear to be unfounded. However, this event draws an inevitable parallel to Ubisoft’s 2013 data breach, reinforcing that as a high-profile publisher with persistent online ecosystems, it remains a prime target for cyber attacks.

Conclusion

The 2025 Rainbow Six Siege incident serves as a stark, real-time stress test. Ubisoft’s response—particularly its transparent communication, decisive rollback, and player-protective policies—has been a commendable and effective handling of the immediate crisis. The community's primary concerns regarding false bans and fraudulent currency have been directly addressed.

The key lingering question is the root cause of the vulnerability that allowed this scale of manipulation. The success of the ongoing recovery won't just be measured by a functional Marketplace returning, but by the clarity and security Ubisoft provides in its official findings.

For players, the next two weeks are a period of watchful waiting. The focus should be on Ubisoft's official channels for two critical updates: the formal conclusion of their investigation into the incident's cause, and a concrete timeline for the full reinstatement of the Siege Marketplace and its economy. The long-term challenge for Ubisoft is now clearly defined: fortifying the digital foundations upon which its most successful live-service games are built.

Tags: Rainbow Six Siege, Ubisoft, Video Game Security, Live Service Games, Server Incident