In an official statement on the EVE Online website,CCP chief of operations Jón Hörðdal explained that a database anomoly indicative of a potential exploit recently caused both the EVE Online game servers and its website to be temporarily brought down.

Explained Hörðdal, "What we discovered was an indication that one of our databases was being accessed through a security breach. Our policy in such cases is to mobilize a taskforce of internal and external experts to evaluate the situation."

Hörðdal said that the taskforce concluded that going completely dark so that an exhaustive scan could be performed was the best course of action. "While some may feel that such a drastic reaction was not warranted, it is always our approach to err on the side of caution in order to protect the players," he said.

"Our taskforce quickly found the security breach and prevented that from being used," added Hörðdal. "We can also confirm that no personal details such as users’ credentials or credit card numbers were exposed through this incident."

According to the website, EVE's servers were brought back online at 22:00 GMT, and the EVE team will continue to monitor the situation in the coming week. Said Hörðdal "We of course understand the effect and disruption this has had for our players and apologize for not having been able to explain to the community what was going on. In these cases it can often be counterproductive to containment to give out information while we are in the process of evaluating the scope of the problem."