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Controversial online zombie-blasting video game The War Z is on pause after hackers raided its forum and its database of players.

Publisher OP Productions has advised survivors - what it calls its 600,000 or so gamers - to change their passwords: the as-yet unidentified infiltrators of its computer systems accessed players' email addresses and obfuscated passwords, but not their banking card details for the pay-to-play shooter.

In a statement, the company said it has suspended the game and its forum for an unspecified period in order to carry out an investigation into the hack. It did not disclose the hashing algorithm used to "encrypt" the passwords nor whether the hashes were salted. It stated:

We are sorry to report that we have discovered that hackers gained access to our forum and game databases and the player data in those databases. We have launched a thorough investigation covering our entire system to determine the scope of the intrusion. This investigation is ongoing and is our top priority. As part of the remediation and security enhancement process we will be taking the game and forums down temporarily.

OP Productions called in external consultants to investigate the digital break-in, which it described as a "humbling experience". The games outfit also apologised for any inconvenience.

The War Z is a multiplayer zombie survival horror fest that has attracted criticism since its release in December.

Christopher Boyd (AKA Paperghost), an avid gamer and senior researcher for ThreatTrack Security, said the hack may have been carried out by a gamer who felt let down by OP Productions and wanted revenge.

"The War Z is itself a rather controversial title - it was pulled from [Valve's online software store] Steam a while ago due to allegations regarding its marketing and promotional claims of in-game features which didn't actually exist in the game," Boyd told El Reg.

"It's entirely possible that somebody felt short-changed amid the furore over the game and decided to take action into their own hands, especially as the game has recently reappeared on Steam. While it's a little odd that the developers don't collect names and addresses, that may be a blessing in disguise given the player data it seems the hackers had access to," he added.

A blog post by Boyd notes that screenshots showing what looks like compromised developer accounts spamming players in-game have been doing the rounds in the run-up to this week's announcement of a security breach. Boyd advises gamers to look for updates via the official Steam Community forum rather than the compromised The War Z forum. ®

Bootnote

Thanks to reader Vin K for forwarding OP Productions' statement on the data raid.

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