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	"created_at": "2026-04-06T00:12:01.760062Z",
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	"title": "Exclusive — Hacker Steals Over 218 Million Zynga 'Words with Friends' Gamers Data",
	"llm_title": "",
	"authors": "",
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	"plain_text": "Exclusive — Hacker Steals Over 218 Million Zynga 'Words with\r\nFriends' Gamers Data\r\nBy The Hacker News\r\nPublished: 2019-09-29 · Archived: 2026-04-05 16:12:19 UTC\r\nA Pakistani hacker who previously made headlines earlier this year for selling almost a billion user records stolen\r\nfrom nearly 45 popular online services has now claimed to have hacked the popular mobile social game company\r\nZynga Inc.\r\nWith a current market capitalization of over $5 billion, Zynga is one of the world's most successful social game\r\ndevelopers with a collection of hit online games—including FarmVille, Words With Friends, Zynga Poker, Mafia\r\nWars, and Café World—with over a billion players worldwide.\r\nGoing by the online alias Gnosticplayers, the serial hacker told The Hacker News that this time, he managed to\r\nbreach \"Words With Friends,\" a popular Zynga-developed word puzzle game, and unauthorisedly access a\r\nmassive database of more than 218 million users.\r\nAccording to the hacker, the data breach affected all Android and iOS game players who installed and signed up\r\nfor the 'Words With Friends' game on and before 2nd September this year.\r\nhttps://thehackernews.com/2019/09/zynga-game-hacking.html\r\nPage 1 of 3\n\nIn a statement published over a week ago, Zynga admitted the data breach, revealing that the \"account login\r\ninformation for certain players of Draw Something and Words With Friends that may have been accessed,\"\r\nthough the company did not reveal the number of affected users.\r\n\"We recently discovered that certain player account information may have been illegally accessed by\r\noutside hackers.\" reads the statement.\r\nBased on a sample data Gnosticplayers shared with The Hacker News, the stolen users' information includes their:\r\nNames\r\nEmail addresses\r\nLogin IDs\r\nHashed passwords, SHA1 with salt\r\nPassword reset token (if ever requested)\r\nPhone numbers (if provided)\r\nFacebook ID (if connected)\r\nZynga account ID\r\nBesides this, the hacker also claims to have hacked data belonging to some other Zynga-developed games,\r\nincluding Draw Something and the discontinued OMGPOP game, which allegedly exposed clear text passwords\r\nfor more than 7 million users.\r\nhttps://thehackernews.com/2019/09/zynga-game-hacking.html\r\nPage 2 of 3\n\n\"An investigation was immediately commenced, leading third-party forensics firms were retained to\r\nassist, and we have contacted law enforcement,\" the company said.\r\n\"As a precaution, we have taken steps to protect these users' accounts from invalid logins. We plan to\r\nnotify players as the investigation proceeds further.\"\r\nWhat's your take? If you are a user of the Words With Friends game, you should immediately change the password\r\nfor your account and also on other services in the event you re-used the same password.\r\nThe Hacker News has already reached out to Zynga for a comment and will update this story if we hear back.\r\nIn March 2019, the same hacker compromised over 26 million online accounts originating from 6 websites and\r\nput the stolen records for sale on the popular dark-web market called Dream Market.\r\nIn February, the hacker made three rounds of stolen accounts up for sale on Dream Market, posting details of 620\r\nmillion online accounts stolen from 16 websites in the first round, 127 million from 8 sites in the second, and 92\r\nmillion from 8 websites in the third.\r\nFound this article interesting? Follow us on Google News, Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content\r\nwe post.\r\nSource: https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/zynga-game-hacking.html\r\nhttps://thehackernews.com/2019/09/zynga-game-hacking.html\r\nPage 3 of 3",
	"extraction_quality": 1,
	"language": "EN",
	"sources": [
		"ETDA"
	],
	"references": [
		"https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/zynga-game-hacking.html"
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