A Pastebin document that circulated online yesterday may have contained names and passwords for EA Origin accounts, says CSO Online.
Steve Ragan spoke to an anonymous gamer who discovered his information in the breach. It contained details associated with his EA account, as well as a list of games that he owns. Ragan notes that the data in the document, which has since been taken down, isn’t complete. While email addresses, passwords, games, and what are possibly birthdays were included in the dump, a lot of the information was unreadable.
In addition, the accounts included in the leak only correspond to the letters A-F.
Origin is EA’s digital distribution system for video games. Users can make an account on their PC and purchase digital downloads of EA games, such as Mass Effect, The Sims, Battlefield, and Need for Speed.
In a statement to CSO Online, EA denied that the data dump was due to Origin being hacked. It’s true that while the information in the Pastebin did correspond to EA accounts and listed EA games, the information may have been compiled from previous hacks.
“In an abundance of caution, we’re taking steps to secure any account that has an EA or Origin user ID that matches the usernames on this list. As always, we encourage all players to safeguard their account credentials and use unique usernames and passwords on all online accounts,” EA said in their statement.
Former EA Community Manager and current Senior Community Manager of Bugcrowd Sam Houston had this to say:
“Those accounts are valuable not only for financial gain, but also for harassing or impersonating users. It’s also worth noting that this dump could just be someone targeting EA in response to something. Over the years, EA has been the target of a lot of ire from various gaming groups, so this could be a response to a particular issue that people are upset about.”
You can read his full statement at CSO Online.
Passwords that were leaked in the Pastebin post are being tested against other accounts, so if you have an Origin account it’s worth taking a moment to ensure your password is secure.
