World of Tanks market system hacked, account details leaked online

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If you play Wargaming.net's World of Tanks , you're going to want to change your password now . PlaySpan, the system used to conduct real money transactions in the MMO, has been hacked, with over two million account details being leaked online, including email addresses, user IDs, and encrypted passwords. Credit card information doesn't appear to have been at risk, but if you use the same password for other games or sites, we'd recommend changing it to something else. And no, not 'Password1'.

PlaySpan have responded to the hack by shutting down the Marketplace and locking user accounts until they've conducted an investigation. In a statement to The Verge , the company said that "When PlaySpan detected the breach, we immediately shut down the hacker's access to our systems and took steps to protect our customers' PlaySpan accounts. We then commenced a comprehensive forensic analysis and are working with law enforcement to investigate the crime.

"We sincerely apologize for any frustration or inconvenience this incident has caused our customers. We know PlaySpan's business depends on consumer trust. Security is a top priority for us, and we are redoubling our efforts to strengthen PlaySpan's overall system security."

Update (6:30 p.m. GMT) - Wargaming America has released an official statement:

Wargaming is aware of the recent security issue with PlaySpan, which affected user accounts associated with its Marketplace store, including user name, email addresses, and encrypted passwords. This affects World of Tanks players only if they used their Marketplace accounts to purchase PlaySpan Ultimate Game Cards through uPay. Wargaming urges players to change their user information and passwords if they are identical on both PlaySpan and on Wargaming.net/WorldofTanks.

Players who do not have common user information for both are at no security risk, and in addition, no financial data was compromised in the security breach.

Everyone at Wargaming apologizes for this inconvenience.

Tom Sykes
Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.