A Pokémon Go player who was made to watch their hard-earned ‘mons get deleted in front of their eyes after a hacker gained access to their Pokédex has had their account restored by Niantic today, but questions remain over security vulnerabilities and just how the hacker gained access.
Popular Australian creator FleeceKing’s Pokémon Go account was cracked on March 13 with the hacker, known as “MasterWarlord01” on X (formerly Twitter) going so far as to record a video deleting FleeceKing’s hard-earned collection. Almost three million people viewed the hacker’s clip as of March 14.
Thanks to the hacker’s outspoken comments on social media and an appeal by FleeceKing, Niantic has managed to recover his account. Nevertheless, the situation has left the community questioning the servers’ integrity.
“It scares me that someone could get into an account without a password and bypass security alerts,” FleeceKing said following the incident, while many others also questioned how access was obtained. Even the hacker had a go at the company’s poor security, saying “Niantic, your servers are shit.”
The fact that a random gamer was able to hack into FleeceKing’s account is concerning on its own, especially because reportedly no one had his account details. Many players have reported getting their accounts compromised before, and while most of it might be their fault for sharing sensitive information, it’s also an indication that Niantic should tighten up its security.
It begs several other concerning questions including special treatment for a large content creator versus a casual trainer. As pointed out by the hacker, the Pokémon Go developer hasn’t exactly been this proactive about any other player before. “You all should notice that Niantic has never recovered transferred items [or] Pokémon for anyone before,” they said on March 14.
Some were unhappy that double standards exist in Pokemon Go, whereby a creator can have their full account restored while others that encounter similar issues are “up a creek without a paddle.” We’ll have to see whether the FleeceKing incident this week sets a precedent going forward, and whether Niantic will make drastic changes to account security to prevent something like this from happening again.
