Hackers expose 180,000 Esport North Africa user records a day before the tournament begins

Shortly before the tournament, a hacker leaked the personal information of 180,000 Esport North Africa users. Although no financial details were revealed, users are advised to change passwords and watch out for phishing attacks.

The hacker known as “Shooked” leaked the personal information of over 180,000 Esport North Africa (ESNA) users just a day before the start of the tournament in Morocco. The 3GB data dump that Shooked claims is the “full database” was released on Security Breach Forums on the morning of Wednesday, October 23, 2024. The ESNA tournament is scheduled to begin on Thursday, October 24.

For comparison, Esport North Africa (ESNA – Electronic Sports North Africa) is a platform to promote the development of competitive gaming and esports across the North African region. It organizes tournaments in popular games such as FC25, Free Fire, Street Fighter 6 and other competitive titles, giving players the opportunity to show off their skills.

The leaked data was analyzed by Hackread.com's research team and contains over 9 million rows. However, after removing duplicate entries, the total number of unique user records is 180,000. This data includes the following information:

• User ID
• country
• Usernames
• IP addresses
• Timestamp
• Session ID
• WordPress URLs
• Email addresses (179,224)

and other details…

Although the leaked data does not contain passwords or financial information, the breach appears to be legitimate. However, final confirmation is pending a response from the organization that has reached out to Hackread.com for comment.

Cyberattacks on gaming companies and gamers are nothing new, as they often represent lucrative targets for criminals. Last year, Akamai's research revealed how hackers were using it the Dark Frost botnet to target gaming companies and gamers and compromise devices to carry out DDoS attacks.

If you have an account with ESNA (ESNA.GG), it is recommended that you change your password as a precaution. Additionally, be wary of potential phishing emails from cybercriminals attempting to impersonate Esport North Africa representatives exploit the violation.

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