Huge data stolen
Game publisher company EA (Electronic Arts), the maker of popular games like FIFA, BattleField, and NFS, has fallen prey to data theft involving gigabytes of private data stolen by hackers who breached their Internet-connected networks.
Not only that, but the hackers also made away with the source code to FIFA 21, the Frostbite engine (which is behind EA’s FIFA and Battlefield series), and other game development tools.
The data is reportedly put for sale on hacking forums and the hackers will consider offers only from big names of the hacking community for purchasing the stolen data.
An EA spokesperson has confirmed this attack by saying,
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.
News of the hack was first reported by news site Vice, which said some 780GB of data was stolen.
Losing source code to unknown attackers is a huge threat for any company.
Source code is a version of computer software that is usually much easier to read and understand than the end version in a finished product, and could be used to reverse engineer parts of the product.
So, the hackers can use the source code taken from EA and sell it to other competitors or developers, and it can also be used for making cheat codes and hacks for games.
This is not the first time, a game company has lost its source code to hackers.
In February of this year, Cyberpunk developer CD Projekt Red suffered a ransomware attack which resulted in the source code for several games being stolen and auctioned off online.
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