Are you in the mood for a whopper of a rumor? Let’s hope, because we’ve got one here for you: anonymous sources tell Game Front that Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello is about to be let go, and that current EA Sports boss Peter Moore will step in to take his place. It goes without saying that you should probably take this with a grain of salt (or five), but if this is true, it could mean huge things for Electronic Arts, which has been experiencing some stock price woes recently.

According to Game Front’s sources, Riccitiello was asked to step down from his position at Electronic Arts after the earnings call that took place on June 30. Apparently, the departure of Riccitiello and subsequent promotion of Moore is “not set in stone” yet, as EA’s board of directors still needs to vote on the change. However, tensions are rising at the Electronic Arts offices as the company’s stock price continues to fall.

John Riccitiello has overseen EA since his return to the company in 2007. It was under him that EA-published games began requiring online passes, and he was in charge when the EA Store was relaunched as Origin last year. Riccitiello is no stranger to controversy, as Electronic Arts was named The Consumerist’s Worst Company in America earlier this year.

The rumor comes just a day after Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter stated that Riccitiello had expressed concerns over being fired from the company. Pachter later followed-up by saying that though he was quoted accurately, he was merely kidding around. Perhaps he wasn’t so far off the mark after all?

Fifa 10 Free

non steam.. but anyone who wans BF1942 it is free for limited time

http://store.origin.com/store/eara/en_SG/h...age.demos-en_SG

Uh-oh. Eurogamer are reporting that a number of people have woken up this morning to find that their EA Origin account has been hacked. Receiving emails telling them that changes have successfully been made, recipients are not too delighted since they never asked for any. And then of course getting control of their accounts back again is a great big palava. It’s even happened to one of Eurogamer’s own.


Rather than the phishing scam it might at first appear to be, these really are successfully changed account notifications. Which means someone has got hold of both a username and password of an account holder, and been able to circumnavigate the security that prevents an outsider being able to change such details. Because, as is mostly the norm, there isn’t any. I’ve just loaded my own Origin account, and when logged in all I need to do to change the password is know the old one. That done, the original account holder is locked out. Fairly standard, obviously.

And because your Origin account details are the same as those for your EA profile, with the same info you can log into profile.ea.com and change the email address too. The only security check to do that is, obviously, to enter the same password again. Doing this sends an email to your previously registered address, but contains absolutely no information about what it’s been changed to. So once someone’s been in and changed the details, you’ve no way of knowing what they’ve changed both your email address nor password to. They’ve got complete control of your account, and with that can even change your Origin ID.

Using this account to then buy games isn’t immediately possible, however. While Origin stores credit card information, it doesn’t store the three digit CSS code, making it have a practical application for the first time ever. And many banks now have that added layer of security requiring yet another password. So it’s unlikely they’ll be able to go on any sprees, and your card number is obscured other than the last four digits. However, what IS on full display is your home address.

A thread on NeoGAF reveals that this has been happening to a lot of people, over the last few days, and also that EA has not been too impressive in responding. However, one person reports a clever trick for at least finding out some of the email address of the person who’s nicked your account – resetting your EA account using a linked account, such as Xbox Live, rewards you with a message saying that an email has been dispatched, and to which domain. Then logging on to the associated XBL account, and downloading EA Sports’ app, the full email address was revealed.

EA assures Eurogamer that they are “escalating the matter”, but more details have yet to appear. So really the larger concern here is: how were email addresses and passwords of multiple accounts obtained? While very many online games and stores are getting hacked of late, passwords tend to be pretty well protected, and people are usually notified to change them after such an attack. Hopefully EA will be back with some answers soon. Meanwhile, it seems prudent to go change your Origin/EA account password now, just in case.

Invalid password out of nowhere.. old issue, but seems like now getting worse..

My password became invalid twice in 3 months, but I didn't get any email regarding password change though.

I do believe Origin was hacked as I've seen alot of hacking complaint on Origin forum since 2 months ago. Luckily my profile still intact so I still can reset my password without any problem.

"Anytime a player has a question about the security of his or her account or personal data, we take it very seriously and take all possible steps to help,"

Yeah... right...... EA still hasn't reply my 3 months old ticket~ I asked them what exactly happen to my account.. heh..

beware guys

Origin Accounts Hacked – Maybe Change Your Password
RockPaperShotgun

just now changed my password too...
right after a pop-up from origin said that i been logged-out from my PC coz my account being log-in from other computer...
and i was like wadehek???

Sadly for me I was at work when I got an email saying my email was changed. Checked again and found out that I have no games in my origin (I registered with EA years beforehand, so weirdly enough my email was linked to my original EA Profile as well as Origin). right now trying to get back my BF3, but I doubt it ;A;

Guy that stole my account. My original avatar is still there as proof (using the same avatar for Lowyat)

how you track it?

Nope, what you saw was our Account Lockout feature. We're working on improving the notifications so you're aware when this occurs (notifications about this feature haven't been an issue until recently), for now the easiest way to reset the lockout duration is by resetting your password as you've done.

Suffice to say, this feature has prevented every last automated attack against Origin users over the last few years

Using Battlelog. I traced the servers that I played beforehand, and voila!