A group of hackers has outsmarted Electronic Arts’ security system and gained illegal access to data on the billion-dollar company. Blackmail and costly offers followed, but to no avail.
Almost 780 gigabytes of data were allegedly captured by an organised hacker group from video game manufacturer EA. After blackmail attempts against the company and several attempts to sell the content were unsuccessful, the information was published on a hacker forum on 26 July.
Motherboard reported on the hackers’ data theft back in June. The hackers allegedly gained access to EA’s communication channel by buying cookies for around ten US dollars and thus obtained the data. The contents included code material for FIFA 21 and the Frostbite engine, which is currently used in the football simulation and also for the shooter series Battlefield.
The hackers wanted to sell all EA data for 28 million US dollars. However, the scammed software source codes seem to arouse little interest for further use. The tech giant did not respond to the hackers’ subsequent blackmail demands. EA confirmed on request of The Record that no player data came into the hands of the hackers and therefore there was no risk for the privacy of the users.
An EA spokesperson further told The Record: “We’ve already made security improvements following the incident.” In addition, EA is “actively cooperating with law enforcement and other experts in a criminal investigation.” EA says the damage from the stolen data is limited. Sensitive data such as operational, personnel or financial information is said to have remained inaccessible.
