EA Doesn't Give in to Blackmail Attempts of Desperate Hackers
The hackers who stole over 780GB of data from Electronic Arts last month have gone from trying to sell it to publishing it online. This is to make EA pay the ransom, but the corporation doesn't give in to the demands.
Last month we informed about the hacking of EA's servers, as a result of which hackers stole over 780 GB of data, including the source codes for FIFA 21 and the Frostbite engine. Now, the same group - apparently unable to sell the obtained files - decided to extort a ransom from the US company. After sending demands to which EA has not responded - in fact, the company maintains that it has not received any claims - an archive "weighing" 1.3 GB hit the web, and the hackers threatened that if they do not get the appropriate amount of money (we do not know exactly how much), more material will be made public.
The package with the stolen data appeared on one of the Internet forums and is said to contain references to EA's internal development tools, as well as its Origin store. Interestingly, the hackers allegedly asked Motherboard, which made the matter public to contact the American company on their behalf... The website's owners refused. At the same time, they informed that they received screenshots that suggest that among the aforementioned 780 GB of data - in addition to what we already know - there are also software development kits (SDK) and materials related to The Sims series.
What does EA have to say about all this? The company seems to be extremely calm and monitors the situation. Its spokesman published the following statement on Motherboard:
"We're aware of the recent posts by the alleged hackers and we are analyzing the files released. At this time, we continue to believe that it does not contain data that poses any concern to player privacy, and we have no reason to believe that there is any material risk to our games, our business, or our players. We continue to work with federal law enforcement officials as part of this ongoing criminal investigation."
Electronic Arts was to make security improvements immediately after the incident. This is significant because the hack was fairly simple - all it took was a $10 purchase of stolen cookies and a small lie to obtain a multi-factor authentication token for the company's network from one of the employees.
