In a nutshell: Electronic Arts has reportedly fallen victim to hackers claiming to have gotten away with roughly 780GB worth of data. As you've no doubt seen, security breaches are a dime a dozen these days. EA is playing this one off as relatively minor, and fortunately, no player data was compromised in the breach.
Motherboard was first to report on the matter, noting a source with access to various underground hacking forums tipped them off. Per the forum posts, the hackers said they acquired the source code for FIFA 21 in addition to code for the game's matchmaking server. They also made away with source code and tools for the Frostbite game engine that drives franchises like Battlefield, Madden NFL and FIFA.
Other assets collected in the heist reportedly include proprietary EA frameworks and SDKs.
The haul is actively up for sale on various underground hacking sites, Motherboard said. It's unclear how much the hackers are asking for the information.
The publication reached out to EA, who confirmed they had suffered a breach and that the information listed by the hackers was indeed compromised. The EA spokesperson's response has been reproduced below:
"We are investigating a recent incident of intrusion into our network where a limited amount of game source code and related tools were stolen. No player data was accessed, and we have no reason to believe there is any risk to player privacy. Following the incident, we've already made security improvements and do not expect an impact on our games or our business. We are actively working with law enforcement officials and other experts as part of this ongoing criminal investigation."
Share value in Electronic Arts dipped slightly on the news but is already on the rebound, trading down just 0.50 percent as of this writing.
Masthead credit: charnsitr