Activision confirms data breach exposing sensitive employee information

Activision, a leading worldwide developer, publisher, and distributor of interactive entertainment and products on consoles, mobile, and PC, suffered a data breach in early December 2022 after hackers accessed the internal systems by deceiving an employee with an SMS phishing text.

However, the video game maker said the incident had not compromised the game source code or player details. A company spokesperson said that on December 4, the information security team swiftly addressed and quickly resolved an SMS phishing attempt. Following a thorough investigation, the company determined that no sensitive employee information, game code, or player data was accessed.

However, security research firm vx-underground claimed that the threat actor had stolen both the release schedule for content until November 17, 2023, and sensitive workplace documents. According to screenshots provided by the researchers, hackers had access to an Activision employee’s Slack account on December 2 and had attempted to trick other staff members into clicking dangerous links.

The entire leak is said to have been obtained and examined by the video game publication "Insider Gaming," which claimed that the cache contains full names, phone numbers, email addresses, salaries, work locations, and other employee information. The article also stated that the hacked employee came from the human resources division and had access to a wide range of private employee information. ’Insider-Gaming’ also listed all the game title-related content leaked in this breach, including upcoming content bundles for the Call of Duty Modern Warfare II franchise.