BioWare Hacked, 18K Forum Accounts Breached
BioWare Hacked, 18K Forum Accounts Breached
Posted 06/16/2011 at 11:52am
| by Brad Chacos
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Another day, another hacking story full of lulz. This one's a little bit different though; the laughs don't come courtesy of Lulz Security or Anonymous, for the first time in what seems like ages. What's amusing about this story is the target! Hit videogame maker BioWare announced late yesterday that user account data may have been stolen in a recent server breach. That's not funny. What is funny: the server was a 10 year old community server that handled the "Neverwinter Nights" forums. While LulzSec recently ravaged Bethesda in search of Skyrim screenshots, the BioWare hacker apparently prefers his RPGs well-aged.
"We immediately took appropriate steps to protect our consumers’ data and launched an ongoing evaluation of the seriousness of the breach," BioWare Studio GM Aaryn Flynn posted on the company's general forum. "We have determined that no credit card data was compromised, nor did we ever have or store sensitive data like social security numbers. However hackers may have obtained information such as user account names and passwords, email addresses, and birth dates of approximately 18,000 accounts--a very small percentage of total users."
BioWare's already reset the passwords for any accounts that may have been compromised and sent the rightful owners of the logins an email explaining the situation. Most BioWare forum-goers were completely unaffected by the breach, so don't sweat it if you don't receive an email – as long as you can still sign in to your account you're good to go. What the heck could the hacker hope to accomplish with 10 year old forum accounts?
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Spencer Taylor
June 24, 2011 at 9:49am
I have to say that Bioware's handling of this matter is spot on. Was it a major breach? No, not in the grand scheme of things; however, Bioware changed ALL the EA log-on's and informed its customers within hours. Had Sony followed these steps, I think their fate would have been different.
As an InfoSec person myself, Aaryn Flynn deserves props for doing the right thing - this is from the email I, and thousands of others, received:
Aaryn Flynn
Studio GM, BioWare Edmonton
VP, Electronic Arts
Silencer
June 18, 2011 at 4:44am
"What the heck could the hacker hope to accomplish with 10 year old forum accounts?"...
Current User Names and Passwords for other online accounts, maybe not just forum accounts. Such as game accounts, email accounts, security accounts, bank accounts... Most people use the same User Names and Passwords, especially for the same types of accounts, forever. How about you? :O)
Aksparks04
June 16, 2011 at 4:54pm
the title of this post scared the crap out of me. Some of us over on the SWTOR community forums have been discussing the recent hackfests happeneing since the PSN attacks began. I've been anxiously following/awaiting the release of TOR since 2008, so when I read your title I was about to say "now this has gotten personal!!!!", but PHEW!
I just hope TOR sites/user databases aren't targetted.
jonnyohio
June 16, 2011 at 12:40pm
Hackers dont need reasons, its the thrill most go after and taking something even if its worthless is the trophy.
Silencer
June 18, 2011 at 4:46am
I usually comment, then read others' comments, so as to not 'pollute' my thinking. You two nailed it, lol!
Phosphorous
June 16, 2011 at 1:33pm
Exactly and they probably figured a 10 year old server would definitely be unsecure.
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