ESEA otherwise known as the E-Sports Entertainment Association recently reported an information breach. There are reports that more than 1.5 million players' information including those in the Counter-Strike league have been compromised.
ESEA Did Not Pay $100,000 Ransom
Hackers breached ESEA's server security and managed to get away with plenty of players' data late last year. A $100,000 ransom demand in exchange for not releasing or selling the data was then given to ESEA. The organization did not give in to the blackmail but instead reportedly fixed the breach. It was only December 30 that ESEA subscribers were informed of the data leak.
The hackers still continued negotiations until January 6 but ESEA would not give in. The group finally made its move on Jan. 7. They hacked into a game server and edited the community feedback system also known as karma. ESEA maintain that it was the only system they got hold of at that time.
On Jan. 8, the hackers decided to release the compromised data after the E-Sports association still refused to pay the ransom. The stolen ESEA data were apparently added to LeakedSource, a breach notification service. Online forums such as Reddit are filled with players talking about their data coming out from the site.
Tons Of Data Compromised
The players' information compromised included the username, first and last names, email address and date of birth. Contact details were also included such as city, state or province of the players, zip code and phone numbers. Player's Steam, Xbox or PSN ID and registration date were also leaked out.
The passwords though were not among the data compromised. But it's still imperative for players to change their passwords in light of this hacking incident. The personal information obtained is actually enough to launch Phishing attacks or any other similar fraudulent schemes. Aside from the players' data some ESEA intellectual property were also taken by the hackers.
