Security News > 2022 > January > FIFA Ultimate Team Account Takeovers Plague EA Gamers
After a number of top traders of FIFA's Ultimate Team game last week reported that their accounts had been taken over and cleared of points and thousands of dollars in game currency, EA launched an investigation.
The company discovered that phishers managed to "Exploit human error" among EA's customer support staff to compromise less than 50 top trader accounts, the company wrote in a post on its website Tuesday.
What EA ultimately discovered was a scenario described online by traders, who shared screenshots online of strange account activity, such as attackers contacting EA's customer staff via the live chat feature, demanding to have an account's email address changed.
"People spam the livechat asking to change my account details until some incompetent advisor finally gave them the account," FUT Donkey tweeted.
For its part, EA apologized "For the inconvenience and frustration the situation caused" and acknowledged that "There is always a human factor to account security and we know we must do better," the company said in its post.
In response to the incident, EA will require "EA advisors and individuals who assist with service of EA accounts" to receive individual re-training and additional team training specifically focused on security practices and phishing techniques, the company said.