World enews: Fifa 22 players are having their accounts taken over by unknown ‘hackers’, EA admits

High-profile Fifa 22 players have had their Ultimate Team accounts stolen by hackers, EA has said.

The attackers were able to steal their accounts using “threats and other ‘social engineering’ methods” that targeted EA’s customer service team, it said, allowing them to get access to the digital goods that were stored inside.

Those digital goods have included thousands of pounds worth of digital currency, according to those who have been affected.

The attacks targeted Ultimate Team “traders”, who work to swap the valuable cards that are at the centre of the game mode and use them to generate the coins that work as currency within the game.

The attacks have seen “less than 50” accounts take over, it said.

EA Sports promised to restore the accounts to their rightful owners, and said it was “working to identify” the people that should have them. Affected players should receive a response soon, it said.

It also said that it was changing its customer service setup to try and avoid the problems happening in the future. Some of those changes could mean that customers are left waiting for longer, but they are “necessary additional steps to ensure our player accounts remain secure”, it said.

Those steps include new training for staff who work on customer service for EA accounts, as well as new software that will watch for suspicious activity and will be able to better identify when an account might be at risk.