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Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard's podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.
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In a statement on Tuesday, an EA spokesperson told Motherboard "We're aware of the recent posts by the alleged hackers and we are analyzing the files released. At this time, we continue to believe that it does not contain data that poses any concern to player privacy, and we have no reason to believe that there is any material risk to our games, our business or our players. We continue to work with federal law enforcement officials as part of this ongoing criminal investigation." EA added it has made security improvements in the wake of the incident.In messages over the past few weeks to Motherboard, the hackers have repeatedly claimed they have sent ransom demands to EA. At the time, EA told Motherboard it had not received such a demand. The company now said it has faced an extortion threat.At one point, the hackers asked Motherboard to directly deliver an extortion message to EA on their behalf. Motherboard declined to do so. Now, the hackers have publicly aired their extortion attempt themselves.Motherboard previously reported that the hackers broke into EA by purchasing a Slack login token from an underground market. The hackers then moved through EA's network before finding the source code and other data.Subscribe to our cybersecurity podcast, CYBER.Do you work at EA? Do you know anything else about this breach or another? We’d love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.