Epic Games Facing Lawsuit Over Hacked Fortnite Accounts

08/10/2019 09:56 am EDT

Epic Games is currently facing a lawsuit over hacked Fortnite accounts and Epic's alleged failure to acknowledge a vulnerability which supposedly put players' accounts at risk. The class-action lawsuit has been filed by Franklin D. Azar & Associates and says that Fortnite users affected by this vulnerability have "suffered an ascertainable loss" in the form of fraudulent charges made on their accounts. Epic Games took measures against this vulnerability but the law firm alleges that users have "no guarantee" such measures will protect their information.

Polygon reported on the lawsuit that's described here at the law firm's site. The post about the "Fortnite Data Breach Investigation" says a flaw in Epic's login system "allowed hackers to impersonate players and purchase in-game currency using credit or debit cards on file with the account."

"This acknowledgement came after Check Point, a cybersecurity research firm, successfully exploited a security vulnerability on an old, unsecured webpage operated by Epic Games," the law firm said. "Check Point notified Epic Games of the vulnerability in November of 2018. Not until two months later did Epic Games acknowledge the flaw. Epic Games did not disclose how many accounts were affected by the data breach."

The same post acknowledges that Epic was said to have addressed the breach in a post on its help site. Epic said it was "working hard to try to hunt down password dumps" to protect players' accounts. The law firm alleges that these protections still resulted in Fortnite users suffering an "ascertainable loss."

"However, affected Fortnite users have suffered an ascertainable loss in that they have had fraudulent charges made to their credit or debit cards and must undertake additional security measures, some at their own expense, to minimize the risk of future data breaches including cancelling credit cards associated with their Epic Games/Fortnite accounts and changing passwords for those accounts," the post said. "Furthermore, Fortnite users have no guarantee that the above security measures will in fact adequately protect their personal information. Fortnite users therefore have an ongoing interest in ensuring that their personal information is protected from past and future cybersecurity threats."

The law firm is currently seeking out those who think they may have a claim against Epic. The developer declined to comment on the investigation when reached by Polygon.

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