Gnosticplayers, the popular Pakistani hacker who previously exposed nearly 1 billion unreported data breaches in five rounds, is back in the headline with a new addition to his hacked list: the popular mobile social game company Zynga Inc.
According to a report from The Hacker News, the popular hacktivist revealed that the most recent data breach covers all Android and iOS users who have downloaded and signed up for the Zynga-developed word game, the “Words With Friends,” on and before September 2, 2019.
Besides from the popular word puzzle game, other Zynga-developed applications, such as Draw Something and OMGPOP game, were also claimed to have been hacked by the notorious hacker.
On September 12, 2019, the popular social game developer Zynga Inc. revealed that the account login information for certain players of “Draw Something” and “Words With Friends” may have been exposed in a data breach.
“We recently discovered that certain player account information may have been illegally accessed by outside hackers. An investigation was immediately commenced, leading third-party forensics firms were retained to assist, and we have contacted law enforcement,” the announcement wrote.
“While the investigation is ongoing, we do not believe any financial information was accessed. However, we have identified account login information for certain players of Draw Something and Words With Friends that may have been accessed. As a precaution, we have taken steps to protect these users’ accounts from invalid logins. We plan to further notify players as the investigation proceeds,” it added.
Earlier this year, the Pakistani hacker has exposed batches of hacked data by posting them on a dark web marketplace called Dream Market. This covers about 620 million user records for the first batch, 127 million for the second batch, 93 million for the third round, 26.75 million for the fourth round, and 127 million for the fifth batch.
Among the numerous companies that have been affected by the data breach includes 500px, UnderArmor, ShareThis, GfyCat, and MyHeritage.
"An investigation was immediately commenced, leading third-party forensics firms were retained to assist, and we have contacted law enforcement," Zynga assured.
"As a precaution, we have taken steps to protect these users' accounts from invalid logins. We plan to notify players as the investigation proceeds further."
Founded in 2007, Zynga stands as a social game developer headquartered in California. Today, it now stands as a global leader in interactive entertainment and takes pride in more than one billion players.
Among its most popular creations include CSR Racing™, Empires & Puzzles™, Merge Dragons!™, Words With Friends™ and Zynga Poker™.
