BioWare's Neverwinter Nights forums hacked, EA Account information at risk

By JC Fletcher



And here we thought we'd get through a whole day without a hacking story. BioWare Edmonton Studio GM Aaryn Flynn sent out an email tonight alerting users of its "decade-old BioWare server system supporting the Neverwinter Nights forums." As with the Sega Pass hack, BioWare asserts that there is no danger of loss of credit card data, but other information — like "user names, encrypted passwords, email addresses, mailing addresses, names, phone numbers, CD keys and birth dates" from EA Accounts may have been taken. These are the same EA Accounts used for online EA games, so it has significance beyond just forums for some old game.

The email includes a password change link, and — also like the Sega Pass hack — BioWare took the precaution of changing everyone's passwords immediately. Of course, if you used the same password for any other site that you used for your EA Account, you should change that too. Should you have more questions, EA has posted a brief FAQ about the hack.

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We recently learned that hackers gained unauthorized access to the decade-old BioWare server system supporting the Neverwinter Nights forums. We immediately took appropriate steps to protect our consumers' data and launched a thorough ongoing evaluation of the breach. We have determined that no credit card data was compromised from the servers, nor did we ever have or store sensitive data like social security numbers. Our investigation shows that information such as user names, encrypted passwords, email addresses, mailing addresses, names, phone numbers, CD keys and birth dates from these forum accounts on the system may have been compromised, as well as other information (if any) that you may have associated with your EA Account. In an abundance of caution, we have changed your password to ensure account security. Please visit this (link removed) to reset your password immediately.

If your link has expired, click here to generate a new email.

We take the security of your information very seriously and regret any inconvenience this may have caused you. If your username, email address and/or password on your EA account are similar to those you use on other sites, we recommend changing the password at those sites as well. We advise all of our fans to always be aware of any suspicious emails or account activity and report any suspicious emails and account activity to Customer Support at 1-877-357-6007.

If you have questions, please visit our FAQ at http://support.ea.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5367/ or contact Customer Support at the phone number above.

Aaryn Flynn
Studio GM, BioWare Edmonton
VP, Electronic Arts

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