A massive data breach has occurred on the popular online role-playing game Town of Salem. The game has a userbase of nearly 8 million players. It appears that the hack accessed a variety of user data, including usernames, emails, passwords, and even a limited amount of payment information.
The Town of Salem hack was reported by DeHashed, a search engine that claims to be concerned with online security. Someone connected to the Town of Salem hack is said to have contacted DeHashed with information about it, including providing evidence of the breach on servers and the entire database of information that was hacked.
The extent of the breach is said to be very large, with 7,633,234 email addresses included in the hacked database. The leaked information is as follows:
Usernames
Emails
Passwords
IP Addresses
Game and Forum Activity
Payment Information
Billing Information of Certain Premium Users
As evidence of the accuracy of its report on the hack, DeHashed provided a list of the “Top 50 Email Providers” found within the database. This information would have allowed Town of Salem developer BlankMediaGames to verify the breach. BlankMediaGames confirmed the breach, although it disagrees with DeHashed on some details.
On Wednesday morning, BlankMediaGames confirmed that its servers and databases had been compromised. The BlankMediaGames team was unfortunately on holiday over Christmas and New Year's, so they were not informed of the December 28th breach and the subsequent DeHashed communication.
According to BlankMediaGames, the breach had broad access to user data, but the company has put in place some security measures that prevented the worst-case scenario. BlankMediaGames says that all passwords in the database were not in plain text. Second, BlankMediaGames claims that it does not store credit card or payment information.
BlankMediaGames is currently investigating the breach to ensure its servers are secure and that a similar breach does not occur in the future. It recommends that Town of Salem users update their passwords “to be on the safe side.”.
Major database hacks are not uncommon in online video games, although security measures have improved in recent years. Sony's PlayStation Network was hit in 2011, affecting more than 75 million users, while Steam was also hacked in 2011, affecting 35 million users, and several other major companies in various countries have experienced similar problems. The BlankMediaGames hack is certainly the largest breach to occur recently. Changing passwords should be routine for most online game players, although this probably won't make Town of Salem players feel any better at this point.
Town of Salem is available now for PC.
