If you play Final Fantasy XIV and reuse your password anywhere else, now is the time to change it. Square Enix posted a notice on the official FFXIV Lodestone saying it has confirmed cases of third parties logging in to Square Enix accounts without permission.
What Square Enix says happened
According to the notice, the intruders are using combinations of email addresses or account IDs and passwords that “appear to have been obtained from other online services of other companies.” In other words, Square Enix is not describing a breach of its own servers. The risk comes from people using the same login details on more than one site. When one of those other sites leaks, attackers try the same combination everywhere.
Square Enix also warned that even a different password is risky if it uses easy patterns of letters or numbers, or your date of birth. It “strongly” recommends changing your password right away if either applies to you.
What the company is doing
Square Enix says it is limiting the damage by restricting access to accounts it believes may have been compromised. If your login has been restricted, you will get an email at your registered address with instructions to reset your password. The company also pushed its One-Time Password feature, which adds a temporary code to each login and makes stolen passwords far less useful.
The notice ends with a warning: if unauthorized login attempts keep rising, Square Enix may start a password reset for every Square Enix account.
Siliconera notes that Square Enix posted the warning in English and Japanese and did not say how many accounts were affected. Alongside one-time passwords, the company offers a software authenticator and a $14.99 physical Security Token, which Siliconera said was sold out on the Square Enix store when it published.
How to protect your account
The fix is simple. Give your Square Enix account a unique password you do not use anywhere else, turn on one-time passwords through the authenticator app or a token, and treat any unexpected reset email with care by going to the Square Enix site directly instead of clicking links.
Final Fantasy XIV is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2, so the advice applies on every platform. It is a busy time for Square Enix fans, too, with Final Fantasy Resonance reviews rolling in today after the game picked up a 36 out of 40 from Famitsu.
