The War Z offline after game and forum hacks

The forums and game databases of online zombie survival shooter The War Z have been compromised by hackers, publisher OP Productions revealed today. Both systems have been taken offline, with the forums temporarily replaced by a security alert message.

OP says its payment transactions are handled through a third party, so credit fraud is not likely. Email addresses used for forum registration, character names, IP addresses, and encrypted passwords were taken, however.

"There is a possibility that simple passwords can be obtained using brute force even if they are encrypted," OP wrote. "Our research shows that many users are not using strong passwords."

Thus all players will be asked to change their passwords for The War Z's game and forum accounts--if you used the same password anywhere else online, you should change it across the board.

"This has been a humbling experience for us. While we all know that there is no guaranty [sic] of security on the internet, our goal is to try our very best to protect your data. We sincerely apologize."

We last covered The War Z when a buggy build and false advertisements led Valve to temporarily remove the title from Steam in December. Since then, the DayZ-inspired shooter had returned and shambled about its apocalypse without much external hubbub.