BioWare Hacked via Neverwinter Nights Forums
BioWare is the latest in a long string of DDoS and hacks against the gaming industry.
Wednesday evening BioWare said in a blog that on Tuesday a hacker gained unauthorized access to the decade-old BioWare community server system associated with the Neverwinter Nights forums. The developer reportedly took immediate action after learning of the breach by protecting user data, and then launched an ongoing evaluation to determine the extent of the hackers' infiltration.
"We have determined that no credit card data was compromised, nor did we ever have or store sensitive data like social security numbers," said studio general manager Aaryn Flynn. "However hackers may have obtained information such as user account names and passwords, email addresses, and birth dates of approximately 18,000 accounts--a very small percentage of total users. We have emailed those whose accounts may have been compromised and either disabled their accounts or reset their EA Account passwords."
Flynn said that if users do not receive an email from BioWare, of if the password still works on the EA account, then chances are the hackers didn't retrieve their information. Naturally Flynn suggests that users should change passwords regularly; they also shouldn't use a universal password for all websites and accounts.
A FAQ provided by BioWare and EA states that the server system associated with the Neverwinter Nights forums was the target of a highly sophisticated and unlawful cyber attack. So far this was the only server system known to have been affected by the unauthorized attack. Once BioWare discovered the attack and locked down the server system associated with Bioware Edmonton’s Neverwinter Nights forums, the developer disabled all legacy BioWare accounts that were affected, and reset the passwords of any EA Accounts that were affected.
"We take the security of your information very seriously and regret any inconvenience this may have caused you," Flynn said. "We advise all of our fans to always be aware of any suspicious emails or account activity and report any suspicious emails and account activity to Customer Support at 1-866-543-5435."
BioWare is just the latest in a growing list of gaming and government websites that have received a DDoS cannon and/or directly hacked. The onslaught seemingly initiated with an assault on the PlayStation Network that brought it to a screeching halt. Epic Games, Bethesda, EVE Online and the CIA are just a few that have suffered the wrath of hacker group LulzSec just in the last week. Currently it's unknown if LulzSec is behind the BioWare attack, so stay tuned.
i like reading news like this
I hate when fads go through media outlets.
i like reading news like this
Thank you.
They obviously didn't know about the vulnerability, or they would have fixed it. You clearly have zero knowledge of computer security. It's impossible to 100% secure a machine, period. There will all be exploits and vulnerabilities.
And sure you will uten.. Give me a break.. I don't like these guys doing this either as it does nothing but make all hackers look bad.
(Puts tinfoil hat on) This simply could be part of a government conspiracy, so they can get tougher laws passed. (Removes tinfoil hat).. But honestly I just think it's a bunch of trolls that get off frustrating people.
It would be significantly more supsicious if it came out after. As is the timing is coincidental; it could have been convenient.
This is just flavor of the month news. They bring this stuff up in congress and the media outlets see an opportunity to ride this subject and milk it for profits and ratings.
Pretty soon we'll be having coverage of how teenage masturbation causes violence and is the reason people go on shooting sprees. Fox News will of course condemn the act or mere thought of doing such things to ones self, while MSNBC will argue and logically point out that It's completely irrelevant and unrelated. CNN meanwhile will pretend they don't pick sides and are bipartisan, but we really know they'll make hints and euphemisms.
Those are noy 0day sploits... they use KNOWN vulnerabilities in UNPATCHED front end servers. Most likely a sql injection script with a vulnerability scanner to find targets.
Incompetence is the problem. If they can do it the Chinese are doing it silently at this very moment.
Why is that obvious? From information on security sites about lulzsec they aren't writing hacks, just exploiting OLD vulnerabilities with a prefab hack kit. Doesn't really require any technical knowledge at all. So far, just about every site hacked in recent news was hacked because they were way out of date on security updates. Do you have inside information that this is something other than more of the same?
This is not the result of a grand hack, it's the result of a code kiddie hitting a server that the owner was negligent in maintaining.
When where there authorized attacks?
Also section called "The world according to Steve Jobs" for all Apple-related news.
Agreed, I would rather have my personal info stolen repeatedly than give up yet more freedoms to the government.