After previously announcing that they were looking into the reports of players being hacked, EA has confirmed that yes, a number of high-profile FIFA Ultimate Team player accounts had been taken over.
With numerous reports across social media from disgruntled FIFA Ultimate Team players who’ve had their accounts taken over and drained of in-game currency, we can hardly say we’re surprised about EA’s findings. Thankfully, EA is doing more than just acknowledging the problem.
In their apologetic statement, EA confirmed that the hackers utilized “threats and other ‘social engineering’ methods” while posing as high-profile players to “exploit human error within our customer experience team,” and bypass two-factor authentication.
As a result of this security breach, EA will be giving its customer experience team “individualized re-training” with a focus on security practices, so hopefully, phishing attempts like this won’t be a problem anymore.
EA will also be implementing additional steps to verify account ownership, while also improving its own software to better detect suspicious activity in order to cut down on the potential for human error.
Thankfully for the “less than 50” FIFA Ultimate Team players affected by this issue, EA is currently working to identify the rightful owners of these accounts, so hopefully, the accounts won’t be in hackers hands for much longer.
“We’d like to apologize for the inconvenience and frustration that this has caused,” EA said to close out their statement. “Thanks to the whole community for your patience as we continue to address the situation and take corrective actions.”