If you’re login into your Blizzard Entertainment account via North American servers then some of your data might have been stolen. Earlier this week a password breach at Blizzard Entertainment got the company on red alert after a security protocol was activated.
From recent hacks, it’s starting to become very clear it’s hard to keep online data safe. Blizzard Entertainment CEO Mike Morhaime announced that the company’s internal network was illegally accessed earlier this week. In other words, hackers managed to breach their security systems and even stole some data.
“Players and Friends”, begins a blog post by Blizzard Entertainment CEO Mike Morhaime about the password breach. “Even when you are in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard” reads Morhaime’s post on the company’s website.
The CEO writes the company reacted “quickly” and “took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened”. So far, Mike Morhaime says the password breach didn’t involve any financial information, so credit cards, billing addresses or real names haven’t been compromised.
The data that was “illegally accessed” included a list of email addresses belonging to some Battle.net users. During the password breach, the company’s Secure Remote Password protocol was activated, and passwords for players in North America were scrambled. “We use Secure Remote Password protocol to protect these passwords, which is designed to make it extremely difficult to extract the actual password” wrote Mike Morhaime.
However, it is recommended you change your password as soon as possible, even if it’s just a precaution. The security protocol was activated for players on North American servers. This means players from North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia should consider changing their passwords.
“In the coming days, we’ll be prompting players on North American servers to change their secret questions and answers through an automated process” added Mike Morhaime. “Additionally, we’ll prompt mobile authenticator users to update their authenticator software” announced the Blizzard Entertainment CEO.
