Codemasters hacked

[Phage]

Just received the following email. Not exactly living up to the company name. I'll have to remember what I had in there.


"Important information regarding your account



Dear valued Codemasters customer,

On Friday 3rd June, unauthorised entry was gained to our Codemasters.com website. As soon as the intrusion was detected, we immediately took codemasters.com and associated web services offline in order to prevent any further intrusion.

During the days since the attack we have conducted a thorough investigation in order to ascertain the extent and scope of the breach and have regrettably discovered that the intruder was able to gain access to the following:

Codemasters.com website

Access to the Codemasters corporate website and sub-domains.

DiRT 3 VIP code redemption page

Access to the DiRT 3 VIP code redemption page.

The Codemasters EStore

We believe the following have been compromised: Customer names and addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, encrypted passwords and order history. Please note that no personal payment information was stored with Codemasters as we use external payment providers, meaning your payment details were not at risk from this intrusion.

Codemasters CodeM database

Members' names, usernames, screen names, email addresses, date of birth, encrypted passwords, newsletter preferences, any biographies entered by users, details of last site activity, IP addresses and Xbox Live Gamertags are all believed to have been compromised.

Whilst we do not have confirmation that any of this data was actually downloaded onto an external device, we have to assume that, as access was gained, all of these details were compromised and/or stolen.

The Codemasters.com website will remain offline for the foreseeable future with all Codemasters.com traffic re-directed to the Codemasters Facebook page instead. A new website will launch later in the year.

Advice

For your security, in the first instance we advise you to change any passwords you have associated with other Codemasters accounts. If you use the same login information for other sites, you should change that information too. Furthermore, be extra cautious of potential scams, via email, phone, or post that ask you for personal or sensitive information. Please note that Codemasters will never ask you for any payment data such as credit card numbers or bank account details, nor will Codemasters ask you for passwords or other personal identifying data. Be aware too of fraudulent emails that may outwardly appear to be from Codemasters with links inviting you to visit websites. The safest way to visit your favourite websites is always by typing in the address manually into the address bar of your browser.

Unfortunately, Codemasters is the latest victim in on-going targeted attacks against numerous game companies. We assure you that we are doing everything within our legal means to track down the perpetrators and take action to the full extent of the law.

We apologise for this incident and regret any inconvenience caused.

We are contacting all customers who may have been affected directly.

Should you have any concerns or wish to speak to a member of our Customer Services team, please email them at custservice@codemasters.com. "

[sam3]

Its not the first time codemasters was hacked.
I got a similar email last year saying the codemasters forums had been hacked

[zymoloid1081]

When were they hacked previously ? was it recently or ?

[sam3]

26/07/2010

Dear Codemasters forum member,

Codemasters Online take every step to ensure your accounts are as secure as possible. Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that in the last few days the Codemasters forums were subjected to a hacking attempt which may have compromised account security. To ensure your account integrity we have rebuilt the forums.

Please pay particular attention to emails you may receive that claim to be from Codemasters and remember that Codemasters will NEVER ask for your passwords or account details. Should you receive any suspicious looking emails, do NOT click any links in them. Please forward any of these emails to codem@codemasters.com so that we can deal with them immediately.

Although your CodeM password is not stored on the forums, to increase account security we urge you to immediately update your CodeM password and e-mail address for increased protection by logging in at www.codemasters.com/codem.

Things you can do to protect your account and your identity
We would like to take this opportunity to share some tips and tricks with you to help you increase your own security. Taking responsibility for your own account security is important and not difficult to do, every precaution you take is one further defence against such attacks

Giving out personal details
Codemasters do not have access to your password and will never ask you for it, so never give it out to anyone.

Never share your account. The sharing of account details is strictly against our terms of service. We cannot be held responsible for anything that results from doing this.

If you suspect your account has been tampered with, you must notify Codemasters immediately

Suspicious e-mails
Some "phishing" scams use e-mail addresses that look very similar to ours but are not correct, for example customerservice@codemastes.com. As you can see, that e-mail address looks real however on closer inspection you can see codemasters is spelled incorrectly.

How to create secure passwords
When creating your passwords, try to use a combination of letters of mixed case and numbers and make the password of at least 8 characters in length. This will make it much more difficult for hackers to guess your password.

Generally if the password is in the dictionary, it will be discovered in a very short period of time.

When updating your CodeM password please make use of our password strength checker, ensuring your password is 'strong'.

Finally, we would like to remind you of a useful thread in our forums offering additional advice and information that can help to protect your personal data.

[MesoMighty]

Jeeez... Some seem to have too much time on their hands. I understand the hackers getting back at sony for targeting geohot but now this is starting to get sketchy. Do these hackers even have a reason anymore?

[kalniel]

http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/0...es-and-forums/

[Phage]

Like I said.
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-net/20...ml#post2090281
What have they got against game devs ?

[Marenghi]

apparently the people who hacked Bethesda are doing it because they can
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011...-to-be-leaked/

[Joeroe_92]

its lulzsec, (i think thats their twitter name) supposedly theyre going around hacking everyone cos they feel like it. its really annoying me, all this hacking. i wish they would just get caught already so i can believe my details are safe.

[kalniel]

Bioware too:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/BioW...7653193-1.html

[Phage]

Failing to see the lulz in hacking games. If they're so skilled, go up against Scientologists.

[danroyle]

Sega also got hacked got email yesterday