Nordic Games Data Breach
The 2016 Nordic Games data breach occurred in March 2016 when the official vBulletin discussion forum of Austrian video game publisher Nordic Games (nordicgames.at, which subsequently rebranded as THQ Nordic) was compromised and leaked online.
Exposed Data Types
4- Email addresses
- Usernames
- Passwords
- IP addresses
About This Breach
What information was affected in the Nordic Games incident?
The leaked forum membership dump (NordicGames.at_vB_2016-03 (157k+ Users).txt) incorporates community members across historical JoWooD, DreamCatcher, and Nordic Games franchises. The incident compromised records for 157,816 unique players, exposing:
- Account Identifiers: Discussion forum usernames.
- Contact Credentials: Canonical email addresses across European domestic providers (t-online.de, gmx.de, web.de) and international mail platforms.
- Authentication Secrets: Salted MD5 password hashes and per-user cryptographic salts.
- Network Telemetry: Logged client IP addresses.
How many accounts were affected?
Rigorous RFC canonical parsing and deduplication confirmed 157,816 unique valid email addresses.
Technical analysis and security risks
The exposure stems from unpatched vBulletin vulnerabilities enabling full extraction of the member credentials table. Salted MD5 hashes are susceptible to offline brute-force attacks, posing heightened credential-stuffing risks across primary gaming platforms and storefronts.
Recommended actions for affected users
Former members of the Nordic Games forums should:
- Immediately change passwords on any active gaming storefront or personal email account where their forum password was shared.
- Activate multi-factor authentication (MFA) across all digital distribution accounts.
Verification and editorial method
LeakData compares the incident name, date, affected-record count, and exposed data types with accessible sources. Unverified fields are not presented as facts, and records are updated when new evidence becomes available.
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