In the latest developments, Electronic Arts i.e EA, one of the world’s biggest game developers, has confirmed being the victim of a critical cyber-attack where hackers broke into EA’s systems and stole the source codes for popular games like FIFA21, and several others.
Game developer giant EA hacked:
According to the latest security analysis, online forums reporting the matter have noted that hackers breaching EA systems have claimed to have illegally accessed 780 GB of data on the 6th of June.
This data reportedly included the source code for the Frostbite engine. Perhaps this is the most concerning matter since Frostbite is the game engine that is responsible for powering the FIFA, Madden, and the Battlefield series of video games among several others.
The hackers also claim to have the “full capability of exploiting on all EA services.”
A claim of stealing software development tools for the EA game FIFA21 and the server code for player matchmaking in FIFA22 has also been made by the hackers.
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Experts are of the opinion that forfeited control over source code can potentially lead to cyber-risky scenarios where the course code can be duplicated by other game developers or maybe misused to produce hacks for the games, thereby causing harm to the EA gaming business.
Player data privacy remains unaffected:
EA has themselves addressed and confirmed the data breach stating that “We are investigating a recent incident of intrusion into our network where a limited amount of game source code and related tools were stolen”.
According to the gaming developer giant, there is no threat to player data privacy policy since player data was not accessed in the hacker attack.
“No player data was accessed, and we have no reason to believe there is any risk to player privacy. Following the incident, we’ve already made security improvements and do not expect an impact on our games or our business. We are actively working with law enforcement officials and other experts as part of this ongoing criminal investigation.”
Increasing cyber attacks:
Since investigations are still underway, It is not yet confirmed whether the EA cyberattack is a ransomware attack.
However, the incident highlights the increasing trend of ransomware attacks that have been affecting organizations all around the globe. The news of the EA cyberattack comes days after the Fujifilm ransomware attack as well as the Canada Post ransomware attack. In the previous month, the massive Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack was also reported
