Breach, Data Security

DayZed and confused: users’ data purloined from zombie server

Bohemia Interactive, developer of the multiplayer open world zombie survival game DayZ, has admitted to users that its user forum was hacked, resulting in the loss of all usernames and passwords.

The game started life as a mod of ARMA2 by Dean Hall, a former New Zealand Army soldier, and following this success, we joined Bohemia Interactive to develop it as a standalone game. DayZ has been praised for its innovative game elements.

It is unclear how many user details were lost in the hack, but the game has been incredibly popular, achieving over one million registered players in the four months after its release in August 2012.

In a message to users, Bohemia Interactive said: “Greetings, A security incident occurred on forums.dayzgame.com recently. According to our investigation all usernames, emails and passwords from forums.dayzgame.com were accessed and downloaded by hackers.”

However, users on Reddit were quick to point out that the announcement, released on 3 February, lagged well behind a note issued by @dayzdevteam on twitter which was released on 23 January.

Bohemia also said in its message: “While the passwords were not stored in plain text, but in a more secure form, it is highly recommended that if you have used the same password elsewhere you change it immediately on all applicable websites and services.”

It was unclear from this message how the password data was protected and why users would need to change their passwords on other sites if the data had been securely encrypted – we have asked Bohemia to comment but we have received no reply at this point.

Bohemia Interactive told users that it will now replace its IPBoards login system with a Bohemia account within two weeks. “As Bohemia Account is a separate custom-built service currently used by Bohemia Interactive Forums and Store, it offers much better security and its use should prevent similar incidents going forward,” the statement said.

We have contacted Bohemia Interactive but have had no comment from them at the time of publication. We will of course update this article when we hear more.

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