Canada
United States
New Zealand
Australia
Ireland
Roblox, a prominent and often contentious gaming platform, has experienced a significant data breach resulting in the disclosure of personal information.
This includes the addresses of all attendees of the Roblox Developer Conference from 2017 to 2020. The most alarming aspect of this leak is that the breach occurred in December 2020 but was not publicly reported until July 2023.
The Extent of the Breach
The data breach resulted in the theft of years of personal information from the Roblox Developer Conference, ranging from personal addresses to t-shirt sizes. This led to the public exposure of the personal and identifiable information of 4,000 developers.
This includes a list of names, email addresses, dates of birth, even t-shirt sizes, and physical addresses of everyone who attended the Developer Conference during the mentioned period.
The concern is that this type of identifiable information could be used for identity theft, making it a treasure trove for individuals with malicious intent.
The Delayed Reporting
The Roblox data breach took place in December 2020. While reports suggest that it remained unnoticed until this week, it’s more likely that it was unreported due to damage assessment.
Have I Been Pwned, a website that allows people to search whether their details have been leaked, also stated that early reports about the leak started appearing as early as 2021.
However, Roblox failed to make an official announcement, thus failing to inform everyone of their data being compromised.
Roblox’s Response
Roblox made an official announcement about the leak this week, with a representative acknowledging that there has been a third-party security issue, describing the event as unauthorized access to limited personal information.
However, this description seems to downplay the severity of the leak, considering that those who accessed the data also gained access to physical and email addresses and even t-shirt sizes.
Legal Implications
The fact that Roblox hid the information about the breach for so long provides users with legal grounds for a lawsuit—if they’re affected—against the company. A Roblox representative also stated that the company engaged independent experts to support the investigation led by the company’s security team.
Roblox has extended a friendly hand to those affected. Affected users will receive an email communicating the next steps the company will take to support them. However, the specifics of how the company plans to do this remain unknown.
Roblox stated that they’ll continue to be vigilant in the monitoring and vetting of the cybersecurity of their platform and third-party vendors.
Despite these pledges, all that users have received so far is an apology email. Roblox remains a controversial platform due to its overall lack of content moderation and child safety concerns.
Even with all of these issues, they’re still continuing with their most recent project about subscription-based experiences in the game.
