Spades N AZ's Custom Games Night

Yes guys sadly enough I am taking a few weeks off of CGN. It's the first break in the 3 years that I have hosted it. But it will be back! My first lobby will be underground and only solid supporters will get an invite. After that they will continue being posted on Halocustoms each week with SolidSnakee doing the recaps. I look forward to shooting you all in the face again soon.

And if you want to see something REALLY interesting, take a look at a character concept Bungie was working with for Destiny that Choot brought to our attention

. It's here.

 

DGL matches are completed when possible. The DGL will be seen through to its end.

Our new Member of the Month was awarded on the 1st of April and it was no April Fools Day joke. This month's MoM is Victory Element.. He is a young, but very mature member. Give it up for Victory Element!

Our previous MoM, Church, will now be awarded with the MoM Award:

Everyone who participates in any Community Play Dates gets the Gamer Award:

Source- Polygon

Shortly after the update went live, 4J tweeted that Xbox Live Silver members were reporting issues when trying to load save files. According to the developer, disconnecting from Xbox Live or switching to a wired connection without a cable rectifies the problem.

4J Studios said it was investigating reports of lighting issues that came with TU9 as well as complaints of lag in the new area, The End. The developer asked that players refer to their Twitter feed for more information and try the above mentioned workarounds while they work on creating a bug fix update.

TitleUpdate 9 added the new The End area to Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition, where players can face off against Endermen enemies and the colossal EnderDra

DD: "Hey Redemption 1272, how long have you been Forging in Halo?"

RED: "3 years, about 500 plus map concepts that have never been truly finished. So much testing I cannot even fathom how many test lobbies I have had with all those maps, I was lucky because of being in a clan at the time. I was never able to publish anything because I didn't have a harddrive, but when I got one I must have published around 30-40 maps. In other words, I have forged so much I have lost track of how much I have done. Wasn't a big forger in halo 3 because I had to sell my Xbox at the time. When I first started forging, I was honestly a terrible forger. But after countless maps you really start to realize what the community likes."

DD: "That's an insane amount of Forge time and absolute HUGE dedication and that's what we love to see in the community along with how well your maps are put together. Edifice, the winner of the Meet Your Maker Forge Contest. How long has Edifice been in the works?"

RED: "4 months and still ongoing. I am still taking in feedback as I hope to see the map in the throwdown playlist. Ghostayame has already shown interest, so I am excited to see what the future holds."

DD: "Again, extreme dedication shown there. For people who don't know, Ghostayame is a former MLG pro in Halo (before Halo was dropped from the Pro Circuit) but is still considered one of the top players and has been since Halo 2. So Redemption how do you feel about your map being picked out of 103 to be the winner of a major Forge contest and gaining all the prize and praise? How does it feel to have your hard work pay off and finally be rewarded on a scale as big as this?"

RED: "Odd... maybe I am still interpreting all the mixed feelings. Being recgonized like this is a huge step for me as a forger, and it has shown not just in the contest but the FFA and all the youtube channels. I feel unsatisfied in my creative mind oddly enough. Plan to build more, as I love to step into that new realm everytime I develop a map. That in a way is where I feel amazing, doing better than I did before. So the best thing I can say is, I am not done yet.

You ain't seen nothing yet."

DD: "Awesome! Love it Redemption! And that's a big deal with Forgers and Forging you know like you're never really done when you're passionate about it and you and all the other participants of the Meet Your Maker Contest embody what it means to be passionate about Forging. What inspired Edifice?"

RED: "Competitive Asymetric Arena design. Not a lot of maps like that and maps that can be compared to hyper competitive maps like lockout or guardian. Even those maps had their flaws, I wanted to make a flawless Asymmetry design that can be on par with maps like the Pit or Sancturary. Fast-paced, aggresive yet enjoyable gameplay is something Halo 4 lacks in most maps. This experience is sorely needed on top of clean, aesthetic and ORIGINAL forging. Something the community truly desires, and thats what forgers forget.

I forge for the community, not myself.

So to answer your question, Edifice was inspired by a combination of everything I have done so far."

DD: "That's very admirable of you and I gotta say when I played Edifice in the Community Forge FFA Playlist, it definitely lived up to that. Such a fun map, I kept thinking though that I'd love to play Team Slayer instead of FFA on it. Now, Meet Your Maker Play Date held by 343industries.org. Are you gonna be there? There's no date and time yet just know it'll probably be a Saturday and probably and all day event."

RED: "Disappoint my new fans? heck no, damn straight I am gonna be there. I am still taking feedback mind you. All day is a tough cookie but I will show up one way or another. Plus spades would kick my A** if I didn't show up."

DD: "You don't have to stay all day but we'd sure love to see you there at some point and I'm glad you're going to show up! So how big a fan of TheHaloForgeEpidemic and Ducain23 would you say you are? Were you a fan of any of the judges in the contest by any chance?"

RED: "Honestly, I wasn't a big youtube watcher until my map Imago got featured back in reach. Ducain's channel only came to my eyes through the annoncement of the new Cartographers. Plus, Psychoduck was and has been a phenominal BTB forger and someone I respect a lot for his skill and determination, and I only watched THFE whenever he got featured by them. I feel a bit disrespectful on that regard, as THFE has done so much work over the years. My bad, I do feel I should be more interactive with the channels.

They are both dedicated to halo and all it's aspects, that I can respect. Their work leads towards a better halo, nuff said .

Saltykoalabear, Warholic, Alzahran, are all really respectable forgers. They are all so humble, specially Salty. Bro hug!"

DD: "There's no rule that says you should be following them and all their videos haha you're a Forger and that's what you do. You respect the judges and their work in Forging and the Halo Community in general and that's enough and probably all they ask for you know, someone who participated that appreciates the work they put into judging over 100 maps for this contest. So why is Redemption1272 the name you stick with? What's the story behind that GamerTag?"

RED: "Do you remember the halo 2 lan parties?. I do, too well. There is where my passion all began for halo. Some of the best friends in the world back when I was 16, who just played halo for the heck of it after school, during exam week, birthday parties and just whenever occasion suited us. That was the nickname I went with at the time, just random really but that was my tag. That time was the best time of my life, I will never forget it.

Only one of those friends will actually get to read this, and he knows of what I speak of. Thats a part of why I forge, because I want people to experience that we only live once. Those friends that you may never see again, will always have some place in your heart. That friend is who introduced me to Halo, and to this day he is still the best friend I could ever have.

My passion and strength comes from them and all those who appreciate good halo. So in a sense it's an attachment of old but fond memories, that is why I still believe Halo will never die."

DD: "Incredible Redemption. You have quite the way with words and what you wrote was truly special. It was also a very wise thing to say because the truth of it is that Halo won't die. As long as you have the memories and a friend, you can recreate those memories to the best of your ability in the newer Halo and gain some new friends. So, is this friend well known in the community? Can we know the name, maybe give a shoutout to this friend of yours who you've spoken a bit about already?"

RED: "He isn't someone known in the community. While I cannot say his name, I do hope to see him in the future of Halo as his passion is very much similar to mine. Maybe one day you will get to know his name after this, but not today. To my friend, I hope you get an xbox soon so we can have a hell of a time testing maps."

DD: "That's a great shoutout and I hope he reads this at some point, he sounds like someone you're very close to and someone who could do good in the Halo Community and Forge Community of Halo like you do. What are your plans now, directly after the contest? Do you have other projects in the works or are you just chilling and playing the game mainly focusing on updating Edifice?"

RED: "Updates on Edfice will continue but my main focus will be School then my next big project. The greatest of all the maps I have made. Such I feat will not be easily met but with the new forge Island, I think something will come along. Minor changes and adjustments are all waht Edifice needs at this point and will only come with feedback. At this point I am chilling out this week, taking my time and just listening. I hope to continue helping the community grow and I will continue to do so."

DD: "And that's all nothing short of fantastic I can't wait to play on Edifice in the Meet Your Maker Play Date and see your future creations which I hope you post on here for everyone to enjoy and praise. So Redemption I gotta ask you, do you have any advice for up and coming Forgers?"

RED: "Never just forge for yourself or self gain, always be open and always be different. We don't grow as designers by closing our doors to opinions, so be open to even the negativity. Make bridges with people, be honest but respectful, never say never and lastly but not least remember why you play and to always improve your skill not just as a forger but as a player. A better understanding of the game will lead to greater designs. As a friend has said, keep your head small and keep on forging."

That's all folks! If you didn't like that interview I hate you... Just kidding but what's not to like!? This man is incredible! Gifted with the ability to understand Halo not only on a Forge level where you create cool and competitive maps but on a community level saying not to build for yourself, accept any feedback, improve, and repeat! I truly enjoyed this and I hope you did too. HAIL

The Xbox 360 edition of Minecraft will receive title update 9 this Friday following a delay from its initial February release, OXM confirmed today.

Full patch notes for the latest update are available here. Title update 9 brings with it fixes to a number of areas in the game, in addition to big content releases such as the introduction of The End, an area where the player can battle the EnderDragon and reams of Endermen.

The latest trailer for Update 9 was released a few weeks ago in March, offering a look at what users can expect to find in-game.

The news follows Mojang's January announcement that the XBLA incarnation of the block-based world builder outsold its PC-based older brother last year, as well as the more recent news that the XBLA version is due to sold in disc in certain territories. All in all, not bad for a game that was released in May of last year.

 

Spades N AZ's Custom Games Night

Yes guys sadly enough I am taking a few weeks off of CGN. It's the first break in the 3 years that I have hosted it. But it will be back! My first lobby will be underground and only solid supporters will get an invite. After that they will continue being posted on Halocustoms each week with SolidSnakee doing the recaps. I look forward to shooting you all in the face again soon.

 

DGL matches are completed when possible. The DGL will be seen through to its end.

Everyone who participates in any Community Play Dates gets the Gamer Award:

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• Source-Vg247
  
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• ^{Added ‘The End’, with new layout, and new Enderdragon behaviour.}
  
• ^{Added Climbable Vines.}
  
• ^{Added Fire Charge, Wooden Button, Item Frames, Spawn Eggs, Sandstone Stairs, Spruce Stairs, Birch Stairs, Nether Bricks, Spruce Planks, Birch Planks, Nether Brick Slab, Spruce Slab and Birch Slab.}
  
• ^{Added new music for The End and The Nether from C418}
  
• ^{Made buckets and signs stackable.}
  
• ^{Sheep now re-grow their wool after shearing.}
  
• ^{New gravel texture.}
  
• ^{Can now smelt Netherrack into a Nether Brick in a Furnace.}
  
• ^{Blacksmith buildings in Villages now hold chests with loot of the same type as found in Strongholds.}
  
• ^{Crafting recipe change – Sign recipe gives three Signs.}
  
• ^{Crafting recipe change – Half Slab recipes give six Half Slabs.}
  
• ^{Crafting recipe change – Stone Button now requires one block of stone instead of two.}
  
• ^{Added smoother color transitions between biomes.}
  
• ^{Added beaches to terrain generation.}
  
• ^{Fence Gates can now be opened and closed with Redstone.}
  
• ^{Changed Nether Fortress to make Nether Wart rooms more likely.}
  
• ^{Made Nether Wart spawn randomly wherever Soul Sand is generated in the Nether.}
  
• ^{Nether Wart will now grow in the Overworld.}
  
• ^{Made Dispenser dispense mobs from Spawn Eggs, rather than the egg itself.}
  
• ^{Dispenser will dispense lava/water from a Bucket of Lava/Water.}
  
• ^{Dispenser will shoot Fire Charges.}
  
• ^{Trapdoors can be placed on half slabs and stairs}
  
• ^{Allow players to block with a sword when the ‘Can Build And Mine’ option is unchecked by the host.}
  
• ^{Moved six of the twelve music disc quests in the Tutorial World}
  
• ^{Changed the Tutorial world to add climbable Vines, and some of the new items, and removed/reduced the items in the Brewing, Farming and Breeding chests.}
  
• ^{Don’t show the achievements warning when loading a creative map that has already been saved in creative mode.}
  
• ^{Reduced the volume of the Ghast sound effects.}
  
• ^{Increased the distance jukeboxes can be heard from.}
  
• ^{Improved lighting code performance.}
  
• ^{Improved the loading/saving time.}
  
• ^{Changed the display order in the Minecraft Store to show newest DLC first.}
  
• ^{Added How To Play for The End and Farming Animals}
  
• ^{Added HUD size options for both splitscreen and full screen modes.}
  
• ^{Added Reset Nether option to force regeneration of The Nether. This is helpful for older saves that didn’t have a Nether Fortress.}
  
• ^{Added a toggle for Death Messages.}
  
• ^{Added a toggle to hide or display the animated character in the User Interface.}
  
• ^{Allow individual splitscreen users to have their own settings for HUD.}
  

Microsoft is updating a number of its Windows 8 apps this week and the company is now starting to push some Xbox-related changes. The games app, built into Windows 8, is being updated to include Xbox Live messaging support with toast notifications. Microsoft has also tweaked the user interface slightly, with the home screen displaying the most recently played game along with the relevant achievements. Access to related downloadable content, game trailers, and screenshots has also been improved.

On the Xbox SmartGlass side, Microsoft started pushing out updates to the application earlier this week. Devices will now stay awake when SmartGlass is in use with some stability and connection improvements. Microsoft has also updated its controller layout with an Xbox guide button to help navigate the Xbox UI more easily. Both updates are rolling out to Windows 8 and Windows RT devices in the Windows Store this week.

Electronic Arts and studio DICE have released an eye-popping, 17-minute video featuring action from the first-person shooter Battlefield 4.

The video titled "Fishing in Baku" focuses on the single-player campaign, starting out with a squad of soldiers trapped inside a sinking car before flashing back to kick off combat near a factory.

"As artists and craftspeople, we are focused on creating a dynamic, open design that brings people together with amazing, surprising unscripted moments that they'll talk about for days," says Patrick Soderlund, executive vice president of EA Games Label, in a statement. "That's the beauty of Battlefield."

"It’s remarkably ambitious, but the terrain manipulation already looks fantastic and outer space is gorgeous. This thing has “potential” scrawled all over it." - PC Gamer

"I just had a major nerdgasm" - Markus Persson, Notch, Creator of Minecraft

"The idea being, you create your own insane Starship Troopers moments." - Kotaku

"It lets you build blocky structures, just like Minecraft does, but instead of coating them in low-resolution textures, it makes them look incredible." - Wired UK

" This morning I received an email telling me that the first playable build of StarForge was available. [...] Six and a half minutes later I was wondering how to put my excitement into words. Thirty seconds after that I decided to forget words and just share the bloody video. Watch." - Rock Paper Shotgun

"The most ambitious Indie game in history" - Gamer MC

"Is so remarkably ambitious that I can't begin to describe what I (and so far many others) like about its concepts" - Inside Gaming Daily

"I've played the game for a bit, and I must say: I am very excited for the future of StarForge." -Destructoid

"StarForge remixes Minecraft with sci-fi shooting reminiscent of Halo." - IGN

"StarForge is an ambitious 3d action game..." - Derek Yu, TIG Source, Creator of Spelunky

"...it’s another reminder that indie games are the best." - games.on.net

"Shut up and take my money" - Ncrpts, Poster from Reddit

StarForge is a game about gathering resources, building bases, crafting anything you want, and surviving on an alien planet. Earth's star is dying and humanity transferred as much technology and resources as possible and left on a one way mission to populate another planet.

StarForge was inspired by Halo, Warcraft 3, Borderlands, Terraria, and Minecraft. It borrows elements from the RTS, FPS, RPG, Voxel Builder, Tower Defense, and Physics Sandbox genres. We are building a dark and serious universe and want the player to live out their own unique story on the procedural planet.

We plan to release Starforge for Windows and Mac (with possible Linux support after Unity 4 is released).

Procedural Weapons - Infinite weapon possibilities await. Do you fancy a 3 barreled chaingun, with a chainsaw bayonet, and a flame thrower attached for good measure? No matter how many chests you loot, you will never run into the same weapon twice. Weapons are also fully destructible, so another player can try to strategically rip off your gun barrels. Eventually we want to allow the player to build their own weapons as well.

Procedural Infinite Voxel Terrain and Space - Dig an endless tunnel, fly out to the far reaches of space, and come back again. There are no set boundaries in StarForge, and the planet will procedurally generate each time you start a new game. Hide out in endless forests or harvest them. Mine to your heart's content and discover the different biomes.

Procedural 3D Tileset - Build anything you want with our unique 3D Tilesets. You can create cities, towns, villages, bridges, forts, underground bases, trenches and much more. We are also working on making it all fully destructible, so you can shoot a rocket and blow a hole in the wall. Each material has its own defense and weight settings as well. You can also enter "Engineering Mode" and properly see the stress points on your building while your building it.

Underground/Surface/Space Gameplay - Build a tower that ascends into the clouds, through the atmosphere, then into space, and do this in realtime. Build orbital stations, launch rockets, and explore the vastness of space. Then jump down and fall back to the surface and start digging down to the core of the planet.

Physics Sandbox - We are designing every object in the world to be fully dynamic. Watch as your bridges fall when you remove a support pillar, or your buildings collapse under their own weight and stress. Snap trees in half by launching your vehicle on them. Construction, vehicles, players, ropes, objects, everything is physically simulated. Do whatever you want and enjoy what happens.

Physics Movement - Our movement model is designed closely around the real biomechanics of biped locomotion; it can simulate jumping, running, climbing, wall jumping, wall running, crawling and pretty much any other behavior all without the use of any state driven code. The result is a more human look and feel, and a character that is equipped to intelligently react to dangers far beyond what conventional movement code was designed to handle. It also features a full body IK system.

Loot, Level Up, and Survive - Before the humans landed countless weapons and armor were sent to Atlas. You will find loot chests littered throughout the land, you will need their contents to survive. We will be implementing a perm death system, so you will have to be careful. Every decision matters. As you gain experience you will level up and be able to choose and use new abilities that are unique to each Hero in the game.

Customizable Characters - We plan on allowing you to cloth and armor your character and change his or her appearance. You are unique and your character should be too.

Dynamic RPG like World - Enjoy dynamic weather patterns, a 24 day and night cycle and a real time atmosphere. Creatures will also behave in a realistic matter, scavenge for food and return to their hives at different times of day. Other refugees will gather to build villages, wars will erupt, and there will be the option to help out your fellow man in their quests.

Resources and Economy - There will be many different resources in StarForge. However, the player can only hold so much at a time. When the player can no longer hold what he mined, it will be placed on a palette. These pallets can then be put on transport trucks and shipped to your own warehouses to later be used for crafting. This will keep multiplayer games interesting as players will be forced to build road networks, warehouses, and transport trucks. Plus, they will have to protect it all from players acting as pirates or rival clans. You can also become a trader and try to find merchants to buy your goods at a high price.

Vehicles, Flight, Turrets, Furniture, Fences, ect. - We plan to support a lot of different content. So you can decorate your house, make your fort tough, or build an airstrip and fly a plane to your cloud base.

Multiplayer & SinglePlayer - We will have both modes playable in the game. Enjoy emergant gameplay where you land on the planet, meet other players and NPC survivors, build villages and go to war. Play whatever role you want, become a Solidier, Pirate, Thief, Architect, Miner, Trader, or just hideaway as a hermit. It's your world and you can do whatever you want in it.

Fort Wars & Fort Defense - If your the competitive type, you'll feel at home in Fort Wars, a game mode where two teams duke it out in their quest to destroy the opposing team's "vat". If you're feeling friendlier, you can co-op with your friends in Fort Defense, where you protect your vat from wave after wave of ravenous alien creatures.

Here is what the money is used for:

"Survival: Rent, food, and internet to keep 3 developers working full-time for a year.

Hosting: Server hosting costs money, especially ones with alot of speed and bandwidth. Your money will help keep our main servers going, plus, allow us to provide some dedicated servers for the multiplayer.

Software: Help us afford the essential software needed for pushing this game forward.

Multiplayer: We plan to make a robust multiplayer experience. One that supports Clans, Server Listings, Rankings, Stats, and Leader Boards. We also hope to one day allow persistent gameplay across servers but this is only possible with your support.

Single Player: In order to do a proper single player game you need good A.I and lore. We have extremely innovative ideas on improving A.I beyond what you have seen in traditional games, and good things take time to develop.

Music & Audio: We will hire LoudCore to compose a full fledged soundtrack to the game. We'll experiment with Holophony, a 3D audio technique producing the illusion of full surround sound while wearing headphones. On top of this high quality SFX would really help boost the audio to the next level.

Art: Were looking to purchase some high quality creatures, characters, and weapons from some great 3D art talents we've got lined up. We want you to be able to feel the StarForge universe.

Polish: We generally don't like releasing anything unless it has undergone a lot of polish. So your money will also go to making everything the best it can be.

We've decided to use IndieGoGo because we feel we can only innovate without barriers by remaining independent. We enjoy communicating directly with you and we love all your ideas for the game. This is what makes developing games so special to us, it's fun, it's innovative, we get to share with you, and we feel the need to create.

Our vision for StarForge is innovation and fun, and by contributing to our campaign you will empower that idea and make this happen."

The latest trailer for the Xbox 360 edition of Minecraft shows off the features players can expect in the game's ninth title update, which was expected to hit this March at its earliest.

Title Update 9 is a long-awaited patch that finally lets users access "The End," an area where the player can battle the EnderDragon and reams of Endermen. No official release date is set in stone; however, 4J Studios says it is on its way, as the studio is "almost there with bug fixing." The patch was initially slated for February 2013.

Title Update 9 will be free to download when it launches.

Spring is here (sorta), and Microsoft has decided to celebrate by offering a slew of games at 50% off during the xbox live Spring Sale 2013, which starts on March 26th and continues until April 1st.

Spring is here (sorta), and Microsoft has decided to celebrate by offering a slew of games at 50% off during the xbox live Spring Sale 2013, which starts on March 26th and continues until April 1st.

There are a couple exceptions to the 50% off trend, with Assassin's Creed III, FIFA Soccer 13, Hitman Absolution and Midnight Club: LA only getting a 33% price reduction. The Walking Dead Episode 1, on the other hand, will be available completely free during the sale.

Check out the full list below, or head over to Major Nelson's blog for all the details.

On April 1st, after this sale is officially over, a new set of deals will be available for that one day only. Hopefully, there are more arcade titles to choose from then, rather than all of the DLC we're seeing here.

The Xbox Live accounts of some "high-profile" Microsoft employees have been hacked, and the company says it is "actively working with law enforcement" to disable the attack and "prevent its future use."

In a statement to NBC News Wednesday, Microsoft said it is "aware that a group of attackers" is using "social engineering techniques to compromise the accounts of a handful of high-profile Xbox Live accounts held by current and former Microsoft employees."

The attacks may be tied to those that done recently to well-known security writer and researcher Brian Krebs, who was a victim himself last Thursday. His KrebsOnSecurity blog suffered a denial-of-service attack, followed by a harrowing, real-life visit from police, with guns drawn, who had been told someone called 911 and reported that "Russians had broken into the home and shot my wife," Krebs wrote.

"The cop that took the report from me after the incident said someone had called 911 using a Caller ID number that matched my mobile phone number; the caller claimed to be me," Krebs wrote in describing the nightmare. (The practice of such a terrible "joke" is known as "SWATing.").

There was more. Last weekend, Krebs said he received an email from "a person who claimed to have direct knowledge of the attacks (perhaps because he, too, was involved)," Krebs wrote on his blog Monday.

"This individual said those who attacked my site were a group of young online video game enthusiasts who were upset that earlier in the week I’d written about ssndob.ru, a site that sells access to peoples’ credit files, Social Security numbers and other sensitive information."

According to this source, the hackers in this case belong to a four-man Xbox live gamer team that calls itself "Team Hype,"which until this past weekend had posted a number of videos to their own youtube.com channel...

According to the anonymous source, Team Hype consists of hackers who use the nicknames "Trojan" "Shadow," "Convict," and "Phobia." The source said the group used SSNs from ssndob.ru to hijack "gamertags," online personas tied to Xbox Live game accounts. In this case, specifically from Microsoft employees who work on the Xbox Live gaming platform. Some of the group members then sell those accounts to other Xbox Live players.

Krebs said the source wrote: "They hack/social engineer Gamertags off Microsoft employees by using SSNs ... I didn’t DDoS your site and I didn’t SWAT you, Phobia has been telling everyone he did. The method he released he said he gets SSNs, then calls phone companies and redirects the number and than gets xbox phone support to call number and confirm. I heard he got mad that you released the site he uses. Also Trojan told a buddie of mines ‘fear’ (on AIM) something about a dead body in your closet about your swat."

As far as those Social Security numbers, a Microsoft spokesperson told NBC News that it does "not collect or use Social Security numbers in its services."

But, the spokeperson said, "The attackers who obtained Social Security numbers "may be using it to social engineer other companies that do rely on this personal data for authentication."