Battlefield Heroes Beta applicants exposed in security breach

by Griffin McElroy { Jun 14th 2008 at 3:00PM }

If you're one of the many applicants for the Battlefield Heroes beta, you've probably been informed of this via a somber mass email, but QA Boss, the organization in charge of registration for said beta test, has experienced a security breach which "exposes QA Boss forum user names, email addresses and encrypted passwords." The cause and extent of the breach, and who, if anyone, did the breaching, we've yet to learn -- nor do we know if it will affect the progress of the beta test.

QA Boss advises everyone who uses a single password for all their important logins, and used said password in the Battlefield Heroes beta signup, should probably change that password as a precautionary measure. Too bad, as our previous cipher was nigh uncrackable -- "drowssaP". It's "password" backwards! Brilliant, right?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

tc @ Jun 14th 2008 3:24PM

i really should stop using my bank pin for passwords...

Monkeys Suck @ Jun 14th 2008 3:32PM

It's the price of a pizza and a large soda at Panucci's pizza right? $10.77?

BananaBoat @ Jun 14th 2008 7:03PM

Good show sirs.

That dog will haunt me till the end of time.....

hydralisk456 @ Jun 14th 2008 7:38PM

I waited for you Fry.....

Jakka @ Jun 14th 2008 8:20PM

Spy sappin' mah bank funds!

And FYI,this game doesn't look like TF2.

UltimateQ @ Jun 14th 2008 3:33PM

I got that nice little email. I don't use a single password. So it's all good in the hood. If they used one way hashing, they should be unable to 'crack' the encryption on the passwords, it all comes down to brute force.

CJH @ Jun 14th 2008 3:42PM

They really should just accept everyone that applied at this point. I'd be very upset if my information was compromised for nothing!

%u0410%u043B%u0438%u0441%u0442%u0435%u0440 @ Jun 14th 2008 3:50PM

agreed

sam @ Jun 14th 2008 4:05PM

Yeh, cant believe all that and i'm STILL not in the beta.

Typical

Robotochan @ Jun 14th 2008 4:07PM

Same, I'll have to go change a few passwords and still no E-mail telling me what's happened!

giantenemycrab @ Jun 14th 2008 4:07PM

This is why I always put in phony info in stuff like this.

Faptor @ Jun 14th 2008 4:36PM

When I saw the e-mail I had no idea what I signed up for QA Boss forums for until I saw this article

Marzz @ Jun 14th 2008 5:04PM

yeah, seriously. I thought it was for one of those forums i signed up for to download something and then immediately forgot :/

offday @ Jun 15th 2008 12:44AM

Same. All I know is I better be in after this crap.

WiiFTW @ Jun 14th 2008 4:10PM

I'm one of the lazy ones who use the same/similar password for most everything:(

Jeff @ Jun 14th 2008 7:37PM

Yeah fuck that.

If something serious happens with my password, I can just sue, right?

Less effort than using a new password when I've had the same one for everything since 5th grade.

Aero @ Jun 14th 2008 4:49PM

Argh, now I have to go round and change all my passwords. I best get in the beta after this kerfuffle.

West @ Jun 14th 2008 4:56PM

Wait...did I sign up for this or no? I can't remember! I got no email either.

mundox @ Jun 14th 2008 5:37PM

Dr0wS54P is more better :D

POOLSCLOSED @ Jun 14th 2008 6:57PM

What is this, the poor man's TF2?

UltimateQ @ Jun 15th 2008 2:19AM

Well Since TF2 is so inexpensive. I would prefer to look at it as an alternative. Free is always better.

Lijik @ Jun 15th 2008 1:31PM

Not really, the gameplay is rather different than TF2's.

TeraPwn @ Jun 14th 2008 6:58PM

oh shit, i thought that email was phishing

BananaBoat @ Jun 14th 2008 7:06PM

This type of thing is why I almost never buy anything with a credit card online.

Ignatius @ Jun 14th 2008 7:13PM

Hah.. I'm glad I didn't sign up for this piece of crap. Good going, QA Boss. Quality Assurance my ass.

Deckard @ Jun 14th 2008 7:29PM

QA Boss - irony strikes again. You gotta be kidding me. Now 50% of all the beta signups I've ever entered have had a security breach.

Hopefully there won't be any "Flagship Studios' servers hacked" headlines. I'll leave it to you to figure out which other beta I signed up for.

Alex @ Jun 14th 2008 7:39PM

You must be kidding me? How did that happen, well time to change all my email and what not passwords, shit. EA Games better make this Beta pretty fing amazing if they think it's fine to send out our passwords.

cRPLbEAVES @ Jun 14th 2008 8:01PM

Whoah, i have no email. does this mean i'm good?

Iced_Eagle @ Jun 14th 2008 10:22PM

If you signed up there, then you were exposed.

Perhaps you signed up with a different email addy or it's getting sent to your spam box.

Cristian @ Jun 14th 2008 8:25PM

*sigh* Seriously? A breach? WTF... how can you not know how to properly secure something like that. Even with password encryption, the hashes can be easily cracked. Thanks EA, I just spent a fucking hour changing my passwords and updating them in my password manager...

web design company @ Jun 15th 2008 6:37AM

Everyone from Reddit to Mastercard has had a security breach. And the guys deserve credit for at least having the passwords encrypted unlike *some* people.

Bill @ Jun 14th 2008 11:13PM

How seriously should this be taken? I'm sure many signed up, what do you think the chances are of them finding my online accounts? Should I go all out on password resets? I have so many online accounts I can't count them.

Nick @ Jun 14th 2008 11:14PM

AFAIK, it was related to an old version of the bug tracking system Mantis they were using. Version 1.1.1 has both a "promote any user to administrator" vulnerability and a "execute arbitrary php" vulnerability.

Mr.ESC @ Jun 14th 2008 11:28PM

So....who is in? :D

squeevi @ Jun 15th 2008 9:41AM

I always try and think of a unique password for stupid things like this, places that I know I wont be using everyday. For this one it was EAsucks... Rather fitting, no? lol

juju187 @ Jun 15th 2008 10:18AM

random email addon for firefox ftw

Sean @ Jun 15th 2008 11:28PM

If they were morons and simply stored md5 hashed passwords, then this could will lead to some compromised accounts since reverse md5 databases exist.

If they were smart and added some salt to the hash, (i.e. password concatenated with "heroes", then run md5 on that) the encrypted passwords are worthless unless they can figure out what the salt was. Better yet, they would use some unique salt, such as the username so that an md5 database would not be helpful. I didn't have an account, but if I did, I would want to know this bit of information.