Updated August 7, 9:06 AM
Over the weekend, some attendees of E3 2019 were dismayed to learn that their personal information was compromised by the Electronic Software Association, the organization behind E3. The ESA issued an apology for the leak, but it didn’t reverse the damage that had been done; journalists and content creators trusted the ESA with personal information, and that trust was violated.
Regaining that faith was already going to be difficult, and the battle got even harder with the discovery of another leak from E3s held in 2004 and 2006 (when the expo had the old-school logo pictured above). Now, two sources have told GameDaily.biz that 2018 data was also unprotected.
In an email sent out to E3 attendees of 2004 and 2006, the ESA explained that the issue was discovered while looking into the initial leak: “In the course of our investigation, we learned that media contact lists from E3 2004 and 2006 were cached on a third-party internet archive site. These were not files hosted on ESA’s servers or on the current website. We took immediate steps to have those files removed, and we received confirmation today that all files have either been taken down or are in the process of being removed from the third-party site.”
The email does not specify exactly what information was available on those media contact lists. We reached out to the ESA for clarification, but have not yet received a response.
According to GameDaily.biz, two sources also found a list with data for 2018 media, content creators, and analysts back in the fall of 2018 via an unencrypted WordPress document URL. The website speculates it may have been taken down at the same time as the 2004, 2006, and 2019 files.
One source sent an email to the E3 Expo email address when they discovered the 2018 file in September, but never got a response from the E3 staff or the ESA. The source says the list was still live a few months ago.
When GameDaily contacted the ESA for comment on the latest information, the lobbying organization responded with a statement that echoed previous ones. It read: “We are working with outside counsel and independent experts to investigate this situation and enhance security efforts to avoid this from happening again.”
Matthew Kato contributed to this article.
[Source: GameDaily.biz]
Source: Game Informer
