FIFA accounts hijacked: Here’s why EA thinks it is because of ‘human error’

Several ‘high-profile’ FIFA Ultimate Team accounts were hijacked and EA points out the reason to be human error. As per the initial reports from Eurogamer, a number of high-profile FIFA Ultimate Team traders reported being targeted by hackers and stripped of FIFA points and coins.

Electronic Arts confirming the reports pointed out that hackers were able to ‘exploit human error within our customer experience team,’ to bypass two-factor authentication. Following the investigation, the publisher accepting it to be defaulter confirmed it to be ‘responsible for the security failure’ in the game.

“Over the last few weeks we’ve been made aware of reports that high-profile player accounts are being targeted for takeover. Through our initial investigation we can confirm that a number of accounts have been compromised via phishing techniques. Utilizing threats and other “social engineering” methods, individuals acting maliciously were able to exploit human error within our customer experience team and bypass two-factor authentication to gain access to player accounts…At this time, we estimate that less than 50 accounts have been taken over using this method. We are currently working to identify rightful account owners to restore access to their accounts, and the content within, and players affected should expect a response from our team shortly. Our investigation is ongoing as we thoroughly examine every claim of a suspicious email change request and report of a compromised account,” EA mentioned in its official blog post.

If you are confused about what the issue was all about, here’s a follow up-

Hackers managed to hijack the accounts by using game tags from FIFA leaderboards and convinced EA support staff by camouflaging them as owners of the account. The representatives then revealed the email addresses attached to the gamertag and reset the passwords on the accounts, thereby enabling the attackers to log in and clear out users’ accounts, as per the report. Among the affected traders, the current top FUT trader on PlayStation- Fut Donkey, Fut FG, Bateson, and Nick RTFM were on the list. While the publisher has acknowledged the issue and is working around a fix, EA has event put up an official guide on how to secure accounts from miscreants.

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