According to this EA forum thread, some Origin users are claiming that their accounts are being hijacked. Customers claiming that their accounts are being hijacked are receiving emails from EA informing them that their email address and password have been "successfully updated" even though they themselves have not attempted to update any of their account settings.

Two gamers have filed a class action against Blizzard Entertainment last week on behalf of Battle.net account holders, accusing the company of failing to properly secure players' personal information and requiring them to purchase a Battle.net Authenticator "in order to have even minimal protection for their sensitive personal, private, and financial data."

Hacktivist group Anonymous has made a very public threat to social game developer and publisher Zynga - apparently in response to the company's layoffs of 100 employees and the closure of over a dozen studios. The group said that it would release confidential information about Zynga on November 5 for its "outrageous treatment of their employees and their actions against many developers." They also refer to a business plan the company is using, though details on this secret plan have not been revealed...

Last week we detailed a new hack for the PlayStation 3 that has some in the PlayStation Network concerned that they could face another major security breach like what happened back in 2011 when millions of users' information was compromised by hackers. But security firm GFI Software says that PSN users shouldn't be all that concerned about it.

Sony's PlayStation 3 is facing a new security threat - one it hasn't seen since the system was cracked via the PSJailbreak in 2011. According to a report on Eurogamer, a new PlayStation Network-enabled custom firmware was recently released along with the publication of the console's LV0 decryption keys.

A new United Nations report calls for internet surveillance in the name of fighting terrorism, reports C|Net. The report points out the lack of international agreements on the retention of data, and concerns about open Wi-Fi networks in places like airports, cafes and libraries that are likely prime spots for terrorists and cyber terrorists chatter.

According to a published report by security research firm KrebsonSecurity, a machine inside Cisco is being used remotely by evil doers for unknown purposes. The server in question is apparently being rented to naughty internet users Dedicatexpress.com, a service that allows anyone in the world to access hacked computers at specific organizations.

Eleven Republican lawmakers have urged President Obama not to go forward with an executive order that would implement cyber security measures without members of Congress, according to Slate.

United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is sounding the alarm bells about cyber terrorist attacks, saying that passing the CISPA bill or enacting some kind of executive order to implement protections are necessary to avoid what he calls "Cyber-Pearl Harbor."

He says that the U.S. should act preemptively to protect "national interests in cyberspace" by working fastidiously on some sort of safeguards for critical infrastructure.

According to a report on Develop, World of Tanks, Guild Wars and Eve Online players have been hit by a huge security breach. According to the report the personal information of millions of PlaySpan Marketplace users has been leaked online including user IDs, email addresses and encrypted passwords.

According to a Joystiq report citing an independent investigation by security firm Barracuda Networks, over 80,000 Google Chrome users have been affected by fake versions of Rovio's new game Bad Piggies. The fake versions of the game are accessed from the Chrome web store, which apparently installs a plug-in that displays advertisements for popular web sites.

Polygon has an interesting story of a security firm that has decided to use Microsoft's Kinect sensor to manage their surveillance technology through hand gestures and voice commands

Here's a scary story from the BBC describing the nefarious goings-on at some PC manufacturers where malware is being installed on PC's on the production lines. The startling news comes from a new report from Microsoft.

Jagex announced today that it has launched brand new security measures for its popular MMO, RuneScape. The new security measures are under the auspices of the Jagex Account Guardian system. The free system lets players add "trusted devices" to their accounts, while devices not validated through the program would require some sort of validation process for a user to connect to the game with it.

After undertaking an internal investigation, Website hosting service GoDaddy refutes a report yesterday that individuals from hacking collective Anonymous had something to do with an outage.

CEO Scott Wagner claims that the downtime was "not caused by external influences," but by "internal network events." Anonymous member Own3r claimed responsibility for the outage yesterday via Twitter.

A full statement from GoDaddy’s interim CEO Scott Wagner follows:

This story on Slashdot Games reveals that screenshots taken in World of Warcraft have secret watermarks that can be used by Blizzard to track users - particularly when they are engaged in behavior considered to be illegal or that violates World of Warcraft's terms of service.

The story began a few days ago when a World of Warcraft players noticed that there was an odd mark on a screenshot he had taken in-game:

The Guild Wars 2 Wiki warns Guild Wars 2 users that they need to be on the lookout for phishing schemes pretending to be official emails from ArenaNet asking for personal information.

"Account Security Hackers have lists of email addresses and passwords stolen from other games and web sites, and collected through spyware, and are systematically testing Guild Wars 2 looking for matching accounts," reads a lengthy post on the Wiki. "To protect yourself, use a strong, unique password for Guild Wars 2 that you've never used anywhere else!"

The Hill is reporting that, despite the setbacks with cybersecurity legislation in the Senate last month, the White House is continuing to push forward on a "go-it-alone" path to enact some sort of measures that they feel are an imperative to protect critical infrastructure from hackers and other nefarious individuals.

UPDATE - In the original version of this story, we did not make it clear that hackers are accessing player accounts with user credentials stolen from outside sources.  We've reworded the story accordingly.

Like Republicans last week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, Democrats are adding a new set of ideas to their national platform as they kick off their own convention this week in Charlotte, North Carolina: Internet Freedom. Of course, neither Democrats or Republicans believe in real Internet Freedom (you know, just leaving the Internet the way it is and not trying to regulate it).

Antisec hackers, an offshoot of sorts from hacktivist group Anonymous, claim to have hacked the laptop of FBI agent Christopher Stangl, who the FBI has put in recruitment videos looking to hire "cyber security experts." Hackers claimed to have found a .csv file with "a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc."

Even though a story about a fresh security breach on PlayStation Network turned out to be a hoax, Sony decided to issue a short statement on the matter with C&VG.

Blizzard Entertainment president and co-founder Mike Morhaime issued a statement late last night revealing that Battle.net had been infiltrated by unknown sources and that some user data may have been compromised. Though his note to the community downplayed the security breach, Morhaime acknowledged that a list of email addresses for global Battle.net users outside of China, cryptographically scrambled versions of Battle.net passwords, answers to personal security questions, and information related to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators were illegally accessed.

Apparently the troubles are behind Sulake's Habbo Hotel, because the popular virtual hangout for teens is opening up to teens in Turkey. The new destination for Turkish teens is located at www.habbo.com.tr. The site, like every other region supported by Habbo Hotel, is free to play.

Last Friday the White House confirmed that they were weighing their options regarding an Executive Order since the Senate was unable to pass Senator Joseph Lieberman's (D-Connecticut) Cybersecurity Act of 2012, despite significant lobbying resources spent by the MPAA, RIAA and ESA. The announcement was met with lukewarm enthusiasm by legislators on both sides of the isle, who are not used to the Oval Office creating such broad-sweeping new laws.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. That seems to be the mantra coming out of the White House this week following Friday's defeat of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. According to The Hill, President Obama is weighing the possibility of issuing an executive order to deal with cyber threats to computer systems that control "critical infrastructure."

According to a new survey commissioned by Dashlane, three in five Internet users feel vulnerable to being hacked, but still engage in "risky behavior" online. The survey also found that 62 percent of online adults reuse the same password for more than one of their online accounts as well.

A letter from various advocacy groups sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) urge the leaders of the Senate to add the amendment offered by Al Franken (D-Minnesota) and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) to the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. The Franken-Paul amendment would remove Section 701 from the bill. Section 701 gives corporations the authority to monitor the activity of internet users and use counter-measures against traffic they decide is engaged in "cyber threat" activity.

In a conference call for reporters on August 1 put together by the White House, some heavy hitters in the administration urged passage of the Senate bill, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. Four top U.S. officials took part in the call: John Brennan, assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; Gen. Keith Alexander, commander, U.S. Cyber Command, and director, National Security Agency; Jane Holl Lute, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Eric Rosenbach, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy.

As debate begins and amendments are offered on the Cybersecurity Act Of 2012, the bill may end up going through some fundamental changes that will make it more palatable for those who oppose many of its murkier provisions. So far over 70 amendments have been offered to the bill that aims to protect critical infrastructure in the United States through government oversight.