Data breach alert for Electronic Arts

AryaNoct

I got a notification today that there is a "Data breach alert for Electronic Arts"

but when I click "read more" it sends me to a blog from 2021 breach that happened.

So… why am I getting this notification today? (also site doesn't properly load up for some reason)

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Flexx

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/104875/data-breach-alert-for-electronic-arts

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Alexandru_BD

Hi,

I think this data breach can still be highly relevant today, as a matter of fact most of them dating back a few years still are. That's due to the long-term exposure of data which usually takes place when breaches occur. Let me put it this way: if sensitive information like names, emails, phone numbers, SSN, or passwords were leaked, this type of information doesn’t expire, as personal identifiers and financial details remain valuable for cybercriminals years after the breach happened. Maybe something happened recently, that brought back focus on this particular breach..
The thing is, even seemingly harmless data like emails or usernames can be later used for phishing, spam, or social engineering..

Here's another thing worth mentioning here: many people reuse the same password across multiple accounts, although this is not recommended for obvious reasons.. so, if a password was exposed back in 2021 and the user hasn’t changed it everywhere yet, attackers can still try to access accounts today. Criminals often test old credential dumps on new platforms.

Also, identity theft isn’t immediate, and sometimes criminals may hold onto data for years before using it. Information can be sold multiple times on the dark web and may be available in multiple data breach compilations, meaning it may resurface long after the original breach. It's a snowball effect, really. For example, AT&T suffered a data leak in 2021, originally exposing millions of phone numbers. In 2025, cybercriminals repackaged this old dataset, this time including unencrypted SSN and birth dates, and circulated it on underground forums..

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/online-security/new-at-and-t-data-leak-links-previously-exposed-info-to-social-security-numbers-birth-dates

In August 2021, T‑Mobile was breached and the hackers exposed sensitive personal data of around 76 million U.S. customers, including names, addresses, dates of birth, SSNs, and technical device identifiers. Its effects were long lasting and even today we can find news about this:

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/8/24338947/t-mobile-2021-data-breach-washington-ag-lawsuit

In mid‑2021, data from between 500 million to 700 million LinkedIn users was scraped (not hacked) and offered for sale on dark web platforms. The data included full names, email addresses, phone numbers, and professional profiles, all obtained from publicly accessible information. Why this still matters in 2025? Well, this data remains a fertile ground for phishing, spam campaigns, and social engineering, especially as individuals may still reuse contact info across platforms.
I remember getting a text a few years ago from either a bot or someone who was pretending to offer some part-time job opportunities, or "easy money working from home", and when I asked them where they got my contact information from, they said they got it legitimately by obtaining some kind of "publicly available list" of potential candidates. And they even mentioned LinkedIN, to make it sound more legitimate. Right…

https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/cybercrime-and-digital-threats/a-growing-goldmine-your-linkedin-data-abused-for-cybercrime

I'd say it's not really a bad thing that DIP occasionally reminds us of past data breaches, because exposed personally identifiable information doesn't lose value, and even partially public or seemingly "less critical" scraped data can fuel credible threats like spear-phishing or identity theft..

As for the article not loading properly, check if you have any browser extensions active, that could be interfering with the page, or try to open the link in incognito mode, or using another browser.

Regards