Thursday, June 16, 2011

Bioware hacked, data taken from... decade-old Neverwinter forum?

Now that we live in a world where everyone is going to get hacked at some point, it's apparently Bioware's turn. The company has released a statement detailing an attack and the amount of data that was stolen by the guilty parties. It's not as bad as it could have been, but this is a disclosure no company wants to make.

The hacker gained access to a "decade-old" community server that handled the Neverwinter Nights forum. "We have determined that no credit card data was compromised, nor did we ever have or store sensitive data like social security numbers," Aaryn Flynn, the Studio GM of BioWare Edmonton wrote on the official forum. "However hackers may have obtained information such as user account names and passwords, e-mail addresses, and birth dates of approximately 18,000 accounts—a very small percentage of total users."

Those accounts have been e-mailed, and their EA Account passwords have been reset as an additional security measure. If you haven't received an e-mail, you should be safe.

In terms of hacks, this is very much like busting into a nice boutique and only stealing socks, but it's still disconcerting to see yet another company victimized by hackers. As always, remember to use different passwords for each forum account or service you use, and pay close attention to charges made on your credit and debit cards. This attack didn't end with the theft of financial data, but you never know who's going to fall next. Vigilance is your best weapon.

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Carla Gugino Ana Hickmann Mischa Barton Jamie Lynn Sigler Stacy Keibler

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