EA's Forums Got Hacked

[vansau]

EA's Forums Got Hacked

EA had to take its own forums down yesterday after they were hacked (but everything's OK now).

You may have noticed yesterday that EA's forums went offline without any warning. This is because - as EA has revealed - the forums were hacked. That said, EA has apparently managed to fix the issue, is being upfront about what went down, and the forums are back online

According to EA UK community manager Dan Sheridan:

As some of you noticed the homepage of the forums was defaced by a hacker yesterday using a very new exploit for the software which runs the forums. This was noticed quickly and we took the action to take the forums offline while we investigated the details.

This work is now complete and the vulnerability we believe was used has now been fixed.

There is no evidence that any personal data was compromised and as passwords aren't stored in a recoverable manner, we are confident they remain secure.

Stories about hackers hitting game developers and publishers have been increasingly commonplace over the past year, but EA's one of the bigger companies to have been affected by an attack like this. While the fact that the hack was able to use a software exploit to is no doubt embarrassing, EA is at least swallowing its pride and admitting what happened. From the sound of things, this could have been a lot worse.

Source: Industry Gamers

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[antipunt]

"ea forums got hacked"

*snicker*

"but everything's ok now"

D:

 

[imnot]

All I can really say is

Spoiler

What a shame

 

[AetherWolf]

Awww, I wanted it to impact them at least a little bit!

 

[Rad Party God]

To be honest, I don't feel any sympathy towards EA, in fact, I think they deserved it.

It's never cool when someone hacks your forums, but this is EA we're talking about, with all their online passes, their indifferent stance in Sopa/Pipa and their crappy DRM and online distribution program, yeah, I think they had it coming.

 

[lacktheknack]

All the hate that EA is going to garner here will be VERY misplaced. Feel free to be upset about their behavior elsewhere, but they just set a paragon example on how to deal with a forum hack.

 

[Drop_D-Bombshell]

Oh well, I don't really care about EA. And it's their forums, which is probably nothing but complaint threads and arguements. Besides, is it really major? They took down an irrelevant part of a company that holds no major information on their users. No credit cards, pin numbers Etc. Just e-mail addresses and whingy threads.

Damn, I really blew my load on this. Show's how much i dislike the EA forums :|

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Remember kids, these are the people who only want access to your details but can't keep their own servers secure.

And if the hacker bans you on the forum, you've just lost all your EA games. Isn't that nice of EA?

 

[McMullen]

I can just see the scenario that could have been: EA forums get hacked, all user accounts get hijacked to post spam threads, EA issues lifelong ban to all forum users from its forums, gaming servers, and games and will not hear appeals.

 

[Versuvius]

Only people who don't care about having their games stolen because of technical issues are jumping aboard the Origin train as a major platform (Excusable for one game, say you only want ME3) so..i don't care. if you are willing to put hundreds or thousands of dollars into an unsecure service run by asshats, well, that is just tough luck.

 

[Therumancer]

I have to echo the thoughts that a lot of the big companies affected deserve what's been happening and much, much worse since they don't seem to be interested in changing their ways on their own.

Honestly, EA not trying to cover this up doesn't mean much, I'm actually more curious about what provoked the attack since I very much doubt it happened out of the blue.

Given some of EA's antics like how misbehavior in a forum or MMO (or even just something that annoys a few people who are very vocal) can get you a ban that will lock you out of every product you own... well, it's not surprising they are making enemies. Their lack of response and repentence due to people writing them messages and petitions makes it unsurprising some people are upping the ante. If things like hacking their forums don't get
a response, I suspect the ante is going to be upped. To be honest I won't be terribly surprised if Origin is hacked and knocked offline for a while at least once this year.

 

[Callate]

Not to belabor the point, but since we've established that being banned from EA's forums may also mean losing access to EA games ([link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/87102-EA-Get-Banned-From-Forums-Lose-Your-Games[/link]) the possibility of a hacker gaining forum-moderator-level access is cause for genuine concern.

I'm not saying they handled this badly, nor (of course) are they the first company to be so hacked. But as they're continually structuring things to give themselves more and more power and the user base fewer and fewer means of redress, the possibility of someone picking their locks means the possibility of someone using that excessive power for sheer malice rather than EA's own more casual level of malevolence.

One more thing to consider when you check that "I agree" box, kids.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

I imagine they're hunkered down behind sandbags, wondering if Origin is gonna get hit next.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

All the hate that EA is going to garner here will be VERY misplaced. Feel free to be upset about their behavior elsewhere, but they just set a paragon example on how to deal with a forum hack.

Exactly, EA should get their comeuppance from low sales of something, not from a hack that can put consumers at risk.

OT: I for one would like to know why this is happening so regularly recently.

 

[Ninedeus]

At least they handled if properly, but this was the forums. How would they have reacted if Origin of wherever they're storing sensitive consumer data was hit? Would they have acted like Sony in that PSN debacle of would they have had a contingency plan?

 

[Antari]

Great security measures! Quick shut it all down!!

"This work is now complete and the vulnerability we believe was used has now been fixed."

Until this happens next week.

EA is target #1. I wouldn't trust them with an old banana peel, let alone my personal info.

 

[Otaku World Order]

Well, this is...

AH-HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Sorry, I'm back now.

Given how EA's been acting in it's own forums lately, I'm surprised anyone still goes there.

 

[sifffffff]

So... I don't like EA therefore they deserved it. I like the logic at work here. I think we should apply it to a wider scale of things.

That guy was a dick to me, therefore I will burn down his house, he deserved it because he was a dick and he should have protected his house better so it's his fault for not protecting it.

Use your brains and stop defending the hacker d-bags.