Hackers Steal Millions Of DiRT 3 Activation Codes From AMD Promotional Website

Posted 09/07/2011 at 10:25am | by Brad Chacos

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One of the godfathers of PC gaming, AMD, sweetened the deal on some of its Radeon graphics cards by making an offer gamers couldn’t refuse: buy the card and get a digital copy of DiRT 3 for free. Unfortunately for AMD, rather than drumming up interest and shooting Radeon cards to the top of the sales charts, the offer turned into more of a “horse head in the bed” affair after hackers pilfered 3 million activation keys.

The stolen Steam codes came from amd4u.com, a site hosted for AMD by a third-party fulfillment company. Codemasters (the publisher of DiRT 3), Steam, and AMD itself weren’t compromised, only the amd4u.com servers. The three companies are working in cahoots to try and minimize the damage from the data breach, but the greedy thieves are putting a damper on the good times of the straight-up folks who obtained activation codes legitimately.

“We are working closely with (everyone involved) to address the situation,” AMD said in a statement released today. “AMD will continue to honor all valid game vouchers, however the current situation may result in a short delay before the vouchers can be redeemed.”