EA denies Origin security breach despite user concerns
Several Origin users have complained of fraudulent game purchases made on their accounts, but Origin owner Electronic Arts (EA) claims that no security breach has been made.
Word of a possible security breach began to spread on Reddit when several threads popped up complaining about games being purchased on users’ accounts without their knowledge. /u/Hatec, a moderator of the Origin subreddit, created a PSA thread urging users to check their accounts.
“You may not get affected, but better safe than sorry,” Hatec wrote. “Be sure to not use the same password on Origin as another site and to enable two factor authentication while you’re changing your password.”
“Answer HQ,” an official Origin forum for players to answer each other’s questions, is also full of threads by users claiming their accounts have been hacked and they are receiving alerts for purchases they did not make.
It appears that a significant number of the fraudulent purchases were made for the game FIFA 15, as well as for FIFA Points, which are used to make purchases in-game.
Several commenters on the Reddit thread noted that they do not trust EA’s security measures, so they do not keep any financial information saved on Origin. They also advised other users to avoid using the same password for multiple sites, as a breach on one account could lead to breaches on multiple other services.
“No indication” of a breach
Reddit user /u/Offspring, who is tagged as an official Origin representative on the Origin subreddit, asked for more specific information about the games purchased.
“We do take this seriously, and we are actively investigating what is going on,” Offspring wrote in a comment that also asked for Origin IDs and information on what games were purchased.
In a statement to Venture Beat, EA claims that it has looked into the users’ concerns but did not find that any security breach had been made.
“We found no indication at this point of a breach of our Origin account database,” the statement said. “Privacy and security of user account information are of the utmost importance to us. We encourage our players to use Origin user ID and passwords that are unique to their account and to report any activity they feel may be unauthorized to EA customer support at help.ea.com.”
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