Gamer Information Exposed in Electronic Arts (EA) Studio Firemonkeys Breach

User information was “potentially” downloaded in a breach of Australia-based Electronic Arts (EA) studio Firemonkeys had its forum breached a year ago, according to IGN.

“An investigation determined that a small number of customer email addresses were potentially obtained, but revealed no evidence of other information being accessed including passwords, names, security questions, payment information or any other sensitive data that could permit access to an online account,” the company, which was not obliged to disclose the breach when it happened, said in a statement.

Photo Credit: Kotaku

“To be clear, no EA systems or databases were affected outside of the singular Firemonkeys forum. Firemonkeys took swift and appropriate action under the circumstances to address the issue,” the statement continued.

The Flight Control and Real Racing series developer immediately took down the forums and the breached server after the incident to prevent further damage.

A source claimed to IGN that in the attack compromised information contained names, email addresses and dates of birth while the number of members at the time exceeded 40,000.

The cybercriminals that breached Firemonkey are dubbed Sh4d0w_h4x0r, as a submission was made on Zone-H with the breached forum. They allegedly leveraged a VBulletin vulnerability to gain access to Firemonkeys forums.

The data breach was undisclosed, as under Australia’s data breach notification law, companies are not required to notify customers, media or the Australian Privacy Commissioner.