The mass destruction on show in U.S. cyberspace has pushed the country into a situation never witnessed before in its history. Every day we are getting to hear about a new cyberattack, and for now, it doesn’t look like U.S. government has any concrete response for it. Adding to the string of cyberattacks’ victims, Electronic Arts Inc (EA) became the hackers’ latest target. On Thursday, the company revealed that the source code for some of their highest grossing games was stolen. This news sent a spasm of worry across the gaming community as everyone considered the implications of it on them, but EA has assured that this breach will not impact any user or even the company’s functioning from a more general standpoint. Nonetheless, an investigation into the breach has been initiated and law enforcement agencies are working along EA to trace down the culprit.
As per the reports, hackers targeted the high-value data. They made an aggressive yet successful attempt at stealing the source code of EA’s latest addition in their most profitable series, FIFA 21. Apart from it, they also gained access to the source code and tools for Frostbite engine, a software development toolset for game creators. If numbers are to be believed, then the stolen data could be around the size of 780 gigabytes. Following the breach, hackers put the stolen information on sale in the underground hacking forums. These forums are protected by advanced security which sets up several walls between forum content and the user, thus posing an accessibility challenge for someone who does not belong to their community.
When the news of a breach in EA’s systems first broke, the biggest concern was whether the hackers have managed to gain access to any user data as well or not. Nevertheless, as far as user data is concerned, EA had a comforting statement to offer.
“No player data was accessed, and we have no reason to believe there is any risk to player privacy,” EA said in their statement.
These hacking incidents have grown exponentially due to easing up of security measures for catering Covid 19 caused work-from-home policies, but the government must come up with a plan to resolve the issue before it’s too late.