BioWare's "regret" over forum hack

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 24 June, 2011

EA promises to bolster security.

BioWare Edmonton studio GM Aaryn Flynn has expressed his regret over last week's "highly sophisticated and unlawful cyber attack" suffered by BioWare's server system supporting the Neverwinter Nights forums.

In an email to users, Flynn told fans "we take the security of your information very seriously and regret any inconvenience this may have caused you".

18,000 accounts were affected - "a very small percentage of total users".

Credit card information was not compromised, Flynn said. User names, encrypted passwords, email addresses, mailing addresses, names, phone numbers, CD keys and birth dates from forum accounts on the system may have compromised, however.

BioWare also said other information you may have associated with your EA Account may also have been compromised. Because of this, the Mass Effect and Dragon Age maker has forced a password change.

Last week's Neverwinter Nights forum hack came amid a spate of attacks on video game company servers.

Recent attacks on Sony, Bethesda, Codemasters, Sega, Minecraft, Eve Online and Square Enix all saw user data compromised.

EA has set up a Neverwinter Nights forum breach FAQ.

Why did this happen? asks the FAQ. "While we have security controls in place, even the best software and processes can’t keep up with hackers 100 per cent of the time," EA replied. "We have moved swiftly to implement additional security controls to prevent this type of breach from happening again to secure your data and are conducting further evaluations now."

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About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (9) Latest comment 11 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Zombie-Hamster #1 11 months ago

    Don't know about anyone else but I'm getting very tired of this now! There needs to be a massive crackdown on these hackers, and they need to be bunged in jail for a long time.

    Yet again, my details have been stolen :-(

  • JoeGBallad #2 11 months ago

    I just heard that Jack Thompson is the one behind all these hacks, trying to get revenge on gamers :(

  • faselei #3 11 months ago

    A 'massive crackdown on these hackers' will do nothing. They are either kids who will always be one step ahead or proper organised crime which can't simply be 'cracked downed' upon.

    The real point is that given none of these companies can be trusted to keep our details safe, they should not be asking for so many details in the first place.

    I'm sure marketing departments love our personal info, but what do most companies need from us, especially if its DLC. A username, an email address, a paypal or alternative. No DOB, no credit card, no real name, no real address. That's the problem. They all want to know everything about us, and then they can't keep it safe.

  • Zombie-Hamster #4 11 months ago

    @faselei - Agreed about companies not needing so many details although I'll be thinking twice about signing up to much of anything from now on. I still do think that there at least needs to be a big effort to catch these people though, otherwise what's to deter more getting involved? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you're right in that it'll never be stopped but at least if a few of these idiots are caught it might make some of the others out there think twice, especially if they get big jail sentences. The frequency and profile of the hits that keep coming suggests they think they're untouchable at the moment.

  • apoc_reg #5 11 months ago

    When are these guys gonna fuck off back to their mums basement.

    That Geohot guy who attacked Sony has a lot to answer for, he's encouraged all this

  • VibratingDonkey #6 11 months ago

    I got this email. For the life of me I can't remember ever signing up to some Neverwinter Nights anything. Better safe than sorry I guess.

    It's funny how despite this just happening they still won't allow special characters in your password. Why do companies do this?

  • Kaminari #7 11 months ago

    Sick, sick, SICK of changing my passwords every week.

  • YenRug #8 11 months ago

    @apoc_reg

    Try to keep it straight, Geohot never hacked Sony, he hacked (some argue the term should be "cracked";) a physical PlayStation 3 console. The hackers that took down PSN are a completely different type of hacking entirely.

  • merseymal #9 11 months ago

    Got the email but it was in my spam folder. The link had expired though. Have requested another password reset email but 6 hours on it still hasn't shown up.