Epic Games respond to leaked Fortnite player logins
There is a growing concern among Fortnite players that their player logins are being leaked through the in-game leaderboard, but Epic Games have reassured fans that their API is safe.
Whenever fans create an online account to play games, their first concern is their privacy security. Developers try to avoid hacker scares but they can still pop up from time to time. One Fortnite fan claimed that this has happened with Epic Games.
Jonathan ‘Yung Calculator’ Weber stated that he was inexplicably logged out of his account and that the battle royale’s in-game leaderboards were leaking players’ personal information – such as their email addresses.
This led to a response from a Fortnite data-miner who denied these claims, and their statement was backed up by Epic themselves.
Epic Games deny leaked Fortnite player logins
Yung Calculator tweeted that Epic Games have not secured player logins, so anyone can access these emails and try to hack accounts, reset passwords or kick players out of a match. Additionally, it will also log you out in-game.
“Guys, Epic Games’ infrastructure is so dogmeat that if you don’t have this turned off, people can find your email,” he said.
“That’s kind of bad on its own, but then if they have your email, they can send password resets to your account. That’s fine normally — on Twitter, it means nothing normally — but on Epic Games, it logs you out in-game.”
He further elaborated that he’s not the only player who has experienced this issue- with Clix, Nick Eh 30, and Nate Hill also being affected. “Epic Games has no idea what they’re doing. Their infrastructure is garbage. They need to change it — it’s disgraceful.”
Not everyone is convinced that Yung’s claims are true. Fortnite data-miner ‘FNBRUnreleased’ claimed that these kind of leaks are impossible due to the nature of Epic’s API, so there’s no way that your email address can become available to hackers.
“It is not possible to view the email of another person’s Epic [account]. Epic’s API does not work like that. I’ve been seeing this rumor from [Yung Calculator] spreading false information,” they stated.
FNBRUnreleased’s defense for Epic Games has been backed up by the devs themselves who also took to Twitter in order to respond to Yung’s claims.
“We investigated reports that leaderboards were divulging non-public information or causing unauthorized logouts. This is not the case.
“We are certain that affected accounts remain secure, player info (incl. email addresses) isn’t being divulged & any logout issue is resolved.”
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At the time of writing, Yung Calc’s tweet is no longer online, so either the player took it down or it was removed by Twitter. Either way, his claims have gathered doubts and Epic Games are standing by the security of their API.
That said, you should always make sure that that you’ve take extra precautions to protect your online information. You can do this by choosing strong passwords that are impossible to guess, and by applying two-factor authentication wherever possible.
Image Credits: Epic Games, Yung Calculator