Cyber Security Incident Pushes Ubisoft to Issue Internal Password Reset

It is unclear what type of “Cyber Security Incident” Ubisoft suffered but on Telegram LAPSUS$ hacking group responded to the news with smirking face emoji suggesting their alleged involvement.

The France-based video gaming giant, Ubisoft, initiated a mass password reset, which indicates the company suffered a cyberattack and was concerned about company credentials being compromised.

Ubisoft has suffered a cybersecurity incident that forced the company to reset company employee passwords. In a statement issued by Ubisoft, the company confirmed that it detected a ‘cyber security incident’ last week that caused temporary disruption to several of its systems, services, and games.

The company further noted that its IT team had collaborated with “leading external experts” to examine the extent of damage and attack source. A company-wide password reset was initiated only as a precautionary measure, Ubisoft asserted.

All Services Functioning Normally

Ubisoft further confirmed that all the games and services were functioning normally, and there was no indication that personal information was accessed or exposed during the incident.

The company, known for games like Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed, and had around 117 million active players as of October 2021, confirmed the incident after several users reported difficulties in accessing Ubisoft services last week.

On the other hand, Downdetector, a platform that reports on online platforms going through service disrupting also reported issues with Ubisoft services on 4th March, which could be a result of the cyberattack.

Possible Perpetrator?

The incident seems to be the work of LAPSUS$, the same group that previously attacked Samsung, Mercado Libre, and Nvidia. The group also indirectly confirmed that it was indeed responsible for the incident.

A Telegram channel, supposedly operated by LAPUS$, substantiated this assumption on Friday after it posted a link to an article from The Verge, which first reported the Ubisoft security breach, with a smirking face emoji.

Ubisoft Lapsus Data Breach — LAPSUS$ on Telegram (Image: Hackread.com)

It would be side to change the password of your Ubisoft account, especially if you are using an easy-to-crack password, and enable 2FA if you haven’t already.

Ubisoft and cyberattacks

This is not the first time Ubisoft has found itself involved in cyberattacks. In February 2014, Ubisoft’s forum suffered a data breach in which 1,540,733 records were stolen however the data was only leaked in January 2017 on the popular Raidforums database marketplace.

In July 2018, the gaming giant became a victim of a series of massive DDoS attacks (distributed denial-of-service attacks). As a result, customers around the world reported connectivity and login issues.