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Bohemia Interactive

Bohemia Interactive Confirmed a 2014 Attack on DayZ-Related Servers—but Said Player Data and Development Were Safe

Bohemia Interactive confirmed a May 2014 attack on some servers, but said the affected systems held no user data and would not disrupt current development plans. A source-code theft claim remained unverified.

By VGSources Team 4 min read

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On May 16, 2014, Bohemia Interactive confirmed that attackers had breached some of its servers. The company said the affected systems did not store user data and that its current development goals and schedules would not be affected. Reports also circulated that DayZ source code had been stolen, but Bohemia neither confirmed nor denied that allegation.

What happened in May 2014?

The incident was reported on May 16, 2014, after Bohemia said it had detected an attack on some of its servers. In its statement, the company said it was still investigating the attack’s precise nature and scope. The available report does not identify the attackers, explain their method, name the affected machines, or establish whether files were copied.

The report concerned Bohemia infrastructure. It does not establish that ordinary public DayZ gameplay servers were compromised. “Servers” in later retellings can refer to corporate or development systems, official game services, community-hosted servers, forums, or account systems; those are not interchangeable.

Engadget’s contemporaneous report reproduced Bohemia’s statement and is the key source for the 2014 incident.

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What Bohemia confirmed

  • Some servers were attacked. Bohemia acknowledged an intrusion affecting part of its server infrastructure.
  • The investigation was ongoing. The company had not yet established or publicly detailed the attack’s full nature and scope.
  • No user data was stored on the affected servers. That supports the narrower conclusion that the attacked systems did not contain player account information.
  • Current development goals and schedules would not be affected. This was Bohemia’s assurance at the time, not proof that the incident carried no operational cost or that every later release remained unchanged.

Those statements do not show who attacked the systems, why they did it, what technology they used, whether internal non-user files were accessed, or how many servers were involved.

Was player or account data stolen?

Bohemia said the affected servers contained no user data. Therefore, the company’s initial public statement did not indicate that player account information was exposed in this specific incident.

That is narrower than saying all Bohemia user data was safe everywhere. DayZ-related services used separate systems, and Bohemia later disclosed other security incidents involving its forum and Feedback Tracker. The 2014 statement should not be expanded into a guarantee covering every Bohemia service or every later breach.

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Was DayZ source code stolen?

Contemporary coverage included an allegation that DayZ source code had been taken. Bohemia did not confirm or deny that claim. It remains an unverified rumor in the public record available for this incident, not an established fact.

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There is consequently no sound basis for stating that the game’s source code was stolen, that the game itself was compromised, or that later cheating problems resulted from this attack.

Did the attack affect DayZ development?

Bohemia said its current development goals and schedules would not be affected. The company did not report a development disruption in its initial statement. That assurance addresses the plans then in progress; it does not establish that no development files were accessed or that the attack had no other consequences.

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Do not confuse it with later DayZ security incidents

Date and incident What was reported How it differs from 2014
May 2014: Bohemia server attack Bohemia confirmed an attack on some servers, said those servers held no user data, and said development goals and schedules would not be affected. The nature and scope remained under investigation; source-code theft was not confirmed.
January–February 2016: DayZ forum breach Bohemia said usernames, email addresses, and passwords from forums.dayzgame.com were accessed and downloaded. SC Media reported the incident. This was a separate forum-system compromise involving user records.
February 2016: Feedback Tracker potential breach Bohemia took the Arma 3 and DayZ Feedback Tracker offline as a precaution. It said there was no evidence that user data had been collected and that other systems, including Bohemia Accounts, were not compromised. Bohemia’s forum announcement describes the response. This involved the Feedback Tracker, not the server attack reported in 2014.
Later community-server attacks and cheating reports Bohemia later acknowledged attacks on community servers, security work, and cooperation with BattlEye. The company also reported that more than 30,000 cheaters had been blocked during the preceding year. Its announcement addresses that later situation. Community-server disruption and anti-cheat enforcement should not be treated as evidence about the 2014 corporate-server incident.

What DayZ players needed to do

For the May 2014 attack itself, the available statement does not indicate that players needed an emergency password reset. Bohemia said the affected servers did not contain user data.

Separate security practice still matters: avoid reusing passwords across services and use unique credentials with a password manager where possible. That advice became especially relevant to users affected by the separate 2016 forum breach; anyone who reused a forum password elsewhere should have changed the reused password after that incident.

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How BattlEye fits into the picture

BattlEye is an anti-cheat service used with supported DayZ multiplayer servers. Bohemia’s privacy policy describes its role in multiplayer security and fraud prevention. That general policy does not establish what happened during the 2014 attack and should not be used as evidence that source code or account data was involved.

The careful conclusion

The May 2014 story is a confirmed infrastructure attack with limited public technical detail. Bohemia said some servers were attacked, that those servers contained no user data, and that current development goals and schedules would continue unaffected. The source-code-theft claim was never confirmed or denied, so it should remain an allegation rather than a fact. Later forum, Feedback Tracker, and community-server incidents involved different systems and dates.

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