Users of Nexus Mods, a well-known "Fallout 4" and "Skyrim" Mod Site, may be in danger as the website announced that it recently suffered a security breach. Users need to change their passwords as soon as possible.
The "Fallout 4" and "Skyrim" Mod Site, Nexus Mods, and their automated software, the Nexus Mods Manager, is popular amongst avid gamers of "Fallout 4" on PC. Now, it appears that the databases of both Nexus Mods and the Nexus Mods Manager have been breached, and gamers are being notified to change their passwords as soon as possible.
According to Kotaku Australia, the three most affected mods from the Nexus Mods hack include BetterBuild, Rename Dogmeat and Higher Settlement Budget. The site added that the file in question is titled "dsound.dll".
Since a previous Nexus Mods hack took place years ago, admins are now trying to uncover whether the old hack is connected to the current Nexus Mods security breach.
The owner of the REN-ISAC security firm in the U.S. posted a lengthy statement on the website to announce the Nexus Mods hack, saying that information on the said hack was revealed last week.
According to the Nexus Mods owner's post, the company has already notified several universities of the security breach. In addition, the company informed the institutions that passwords and emails of nexusmods.com domain users are now circulating among criminal circles on the web.
The Nexus Mods owner also noted that even though the email informing them of the breach is clearly stated, it's still important not to draw exact conclusions with the current Nexus Mods hack.
"We indeed had a database breach several years ago when hackers gained entry to our systems by hacking our file server hosts, so this could potentially be a result of that previous leak, or it could be a result of recent database breaches at other major networks (like the Playstation Network, EBay or otherwise) and hackers correlating information from reused passwords, or any number of things," Nexus Mods stated of the security breach.
"Things became more suspicious yesterday when three Fallout 4 mods from three separate authors had their files changed by the author's themselves, but the file change contained a .dll file that, while not being reported as a virus by our Virus Total system (that scans files using 56 different virus scanners), it is still highly suspicious, and the authors have reported it wasn't them who did it," the company added.
Further verifying the Nexus Mods hack announcement from the company is an r/gaming/ sub reddit thread on Friday stating that credentials of many student users have been breached.