Electronic Arts, one of the most important video game distributors/producers on the planet has been hacked. Bad news on the eve of E3 2021, the big annual event for the premier entertainment industry.
Electronic Arts have confirmed a computer attack against its infrastructure and that the information listed by the hackers corresponded to the stolen data. The company assures that “no player data was accessed and we have no reason to believe that there is any risk to player privacy,” it explains to reassure the millions of users who use its many video games or services.
Electronic Arts, another worrying cyber-attack
However, the information that reaches us is not reassuring for the company itself and in general for the gaming industry that still remembers the computer attack on CD Projekt RED or the less mediatic but no less important one on Capcom, both using Ransomware.
From what we know so far, the cybercriminals would have stolen 780GB of company data and according to what they have disclosed in forums they would have “full capacity to exploit all EA services”.
The stolen data would correspond to the source code of popular games such as Battlefield, FIFA 21 (including scripts of its pairing server), or The Sims. Also, Battlefield 2042, which will be released next October and will be the main triple-A of the producer for the last quarter of the year.
Perhaps the worst of this security breach is the theft of information related to Frostbite, the graphics engine that includes software development tools for game creators, as well as EA’s proprietary frameworks and software development kits (SDKs). The criminals have posted screenshots on private forums to demonstrate that they have this enormity of data which, as has happened on other occasions, they are trying to sell to the highest bidder.
Electronic Arts explained that after learning of the incident they implemented security improvements to their infrastructure and said not to expect any impact on our games or our business, although their shares fell more than 2% in the stock market.
“We are actively working with law enforcement officials and other experts as part of this ongoing criminal investigation,” the company explains, although the type of attack used for the intrusion is unknown.
Yes, yet another to add to a very long list of security breaches against any company or administration that comes within range. Worrying.
