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August 13, 2019 - I don't play video games and I don't have any children still living at home. But if you play them, or if your children play them and you've allowed them to make in-app purchases using your credit card, you need to pay attention to this story. There is a class action suit starting to move forward against Epic Games for a large data breach several months ago. It isn't likely to be the last such suit against the video gaming industry either.
Epic is the company that runs a popular game named Fortnite. In November of last year, the company was breached. And that breach exposed the personally identifiable information of registered users, including any credit card numbers that were on file. Although the company isn't saying how many of its customers were affected by the breach, Fortnite claims to have around 200 million registered users.
There is now a law firm that is looking for people to join the class action. They're stating that if you had a debit or credit card linked to a Fortnite account, and there were unauthorized charges on it, you have a claim and they want to represent you.
Normally we might call a lawsuit like this "ambulance chasing," but in this case the circumstances indicate that the breach could have been addressed much faster than it was. The breach was discovered by a cyber-security company; Checkpoint Systems. It stemmed from a vulnerability on the Fortnite login page.
According to reports, Checkpoint notified the company immediately about the issue. But Epic Games didn't address it for two months. If that is the case, the company is likely to face some uncomfortable questions from customers, state attorneys general and from the looks of it, from attorneys representing plaintiffs in the class action.
Any video gamers - or their parents - who think they may have been impacted by this breach need to take a look at their credit and debit card bills for fraudulent charges. And just as a precaution, if you know that you have a card that was linked to a Fortnite account, you should contact your credit card company and ask for a replacement.
byJim Malmberg
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Identity Theft 
