It’s not exactly a secret that there are people and organisations throughout the world that are dedicated to stealing data and information from major online companies. While their success is often hit and miss, when they do succeed, it can often be very damaging or, at the very least, disruptive. – Following a report via TechPowerUp, however, in what represents the latest high-profile example of a companies security being bypassed, EA has confirmed that a hacking attempt was successfully made on the game publisher, and some very sensitive data may have stolen!
Starting with the good news, although the hack was successful, it does not appear that any information surrounding its customers (us) or staff was obtained. However, the bad news is that while EA has not specifically said so yet, the main consensus is that their heavily utilised ‘Frostbite’ engine source code (used in games such as Battlefield, Star Wars, and Fifa) may have been nabbed.
In confirming the hack, EA has said:
“We are investigating a recent incident of intrusion into our network where a limited amount of game source code and related tools were stolen. No player data was accessed, and we have no reason to believe there is any risk to player privacy.”
Although the data breach is nowhere as serious as the one that happened at CD Projekt Red earlier this year, having any form of source code stolen is always a big problem. Presuming it is just the Frostbite engine, if this was to fall into public hands, it could quickly lead to a lot of ‘knock off’ games or worse, some potential exploits being discovered within existing EA titles.
Although not confirmed at the time of writing, similar to what happened at CD Projekt Red, it is likely that the hacking group has already been in touch with the publisher presumably demanding a ransom to not publically release the data. Will EA pay though? Well, we’ll have to wait and see.
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
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