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ESA leaks personal details of over 2,000 E3 media

This information was discovered on Friday night, and the Entertainment Software Association has come under fire.

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The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is responsible for organising E3, the biggest gaming event on the planet, but this past weekend it was discovered that they had leaked the personal information of over 2,000 media attending the event, from YouTubers to journalists.

As explained by Kotaku, this information came in the form of a downloadable spreadsheet on E3's site, but was first publicised by Sophia Narwitz in this video. The link has since been removed, and Narwitz contacted the ESA by phone and email upon discovering it, publishing her video after the link was gone. That said, the file itself was still accessible, even without the link removed, so some were still allowed access until that was also deleted later on.

"Before I even considered making a video I went through steps to confirm it wasn't available. I had an internet archive search that revealed nothing, and the page had been 404'ed. Obviously it was still cached elsewhere, this I wasn't aware of until the video had already spread," Narwitz told Kotaku.

"The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) was made aware yesterday of a website vulnerability on the exhibitor portal section of the E3 website. Unfortunately, a vulnerability was exploited and that list became public. We regret this happened and are sorry," the ESA wrote in a statement to Gamereactor.

"We provide ESA members and exhibitors a media list on a password-protected exhibitor site so they can invite you to E3 press events, connect with you for interviews, and let you know what they are showcasing. For more than 20 years there has never been an issue. When we found out, we took down the E3 exhibitor portal and ensured the media list was no longer available on the E3 website."

ESA leaks personal details of over 2,000 E3 media


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