There’s no shortage of hackers finding a way to gather players’ personal information on game services or websites, but it’s very rare that the average player gets another person’s information handed to them simply by trying to sign up to play a game. Yet that’s exactly what seems to have happened for the players tho tried to sign up for FIFA 20’s Global Series on October 3rd.
The Global Series is an annual contest where registered players compete to earn points in order to qualify for the FIFA eWorld Cup, in which the top players to compete for cash prizes.
This year’s debacle, however, has had some competitors reconsidering whether they should be entering at all.
Soon after registration for the Global Series opened, players began complaining on Twitter that they were being shown other players’ personal information when they tried to sign up, immediately after clicking the link to register.
Players arrived at the sign-up page to find the form to be already filled out with somebody else’s information. It soon became clear that anyone who had signed up for the competition was at risk of having all their personal information revealed to another player.
— Kurt (@Kurt0411Fifa) October 3, 2019
The displayed information included their email addresses, birth dates, and country of residence.
After half an hour of players’ data being shared to other competitors, EA finally shut down the registration system. They released a statement on Twitter acknowledging that about 1,600 players were affected by the bug, and stated that EA was taking steps to make sure that those players’ counts remained secure.
We’ll send you a birthday card.
What a mess. pic.twitter.com/IYMT1ieq4g
— George Hughes (@GeorgeHughes) October 3, 2019
The tweet went on to say that they have figured out what caused the bug, and that they will re-open registration in a few days with the bug fixed.
“Player privacy and security are of utmost importance to us, and we deeply apologize that our players encountered this issue today,” EA said in the tweet.
Whether many competitors will choose to trust EA after this mistake remains to be seen.
— EA SPORTS FIFA (@EASPORTSFIFA) October 4, 2019
