Computer engineer Timothy Meadows has recently put Embark Studios in hot water after he discovered that ARC Raiders was secretly logging your private Discord direct messages.
Meadows found that, once your Discord account was linked to the game, your private messages were being stored locally on your PC, along with full Discord Bearer authentication tokens that could potentially allow unauthorized access.
Embark Rush Out ARC Raiders Hotfix To Resolve Discord Integration
UPDATE: In a statement to Insider Gaming, a Discord spokesperson spoke about the issue:
“We recently became aware of an issue impacting some Arc Raiders players involving debugging features intended for developers building and testing Social SDK game integrations.
This resulted in some players’ Discord information from the game being stored locally on their device, and viewing it would require access to the device or the files themselves. Embark has released a hotfix for the issue and we are providing guidance to developers and updating the Discord Social SDK with additional protections.”
Thankfully, Embark Studios was quick to respond, as the developers shared an update, ironically on Discord, regarding the matter. It was claimed that its Discord SDK ‘logged excessive user information,’ though they failed to mention how that was managed.
A hotfix has since been rolled out for ARC Raiders, which prevents this from happening again. The community was assured that their personal data was not sent outside of their machines, and Embark did not review or keep such information.
Aside from just fixing the privacy and security violations, the studio has taken it one step further, as a deeper audit will be conducted to ensure no further issues arise.
Judging by the response and hotfix, it’s likely that this data breach was not in any way intentional, but it does highlight how easily a game can snatch your private information. Think of how many multiplayer games, even entire devices, that you can link your Discord to—could your security be breached just as easily on them?
It’s more important than ever to protect your privacy and online security, as this saga comes after Discord has struggled with its own privacy and security problems, as the company attempts to set more age verification features.
What do you make of the ARC Raiders Discord security breach? Should impacted players be compensated? Share your thoughts in the official Insider Gaming Discord Server.
For more gaming news, check out the latest Fallout: The New West preview trailer, as well as the new Pragmata release date.
