EA has responded to the recent wave of high-profile FIFA 22 Ultimate Team account hacks, citing 'human error' in its customer experience team as the reason behind the issues.

The company apologised for the account compromises in an official statement, which comes after many of the most popular FIFA 22 streamers - including NickRTFM, Bateson87, Trymacs, NarcoinsFC and FUT Donkey - found their accounts drained of in-game coins and their personal details exposed.

According to EA's internal investigation, the accounts were all accessed by hackers exploiting the account recovery process in a live chat.

"Over the last few weeks, we’ve been made aware of reports that high-profile player accounts are being targeted for takeover. Through our initial investigation, we can confirm that a number of accounts have been compromised via phishing techniques," the statement reads.

"Utilising threats and other 'social engineering' methods, individuals acting maliciously were able to exploit human error within our customer experience team and bypass two-factor authentication to gain access to other player accounts."

In response to the errors, EA has also announced a number of new security steps to prevent similar hacking issues in the future.

EA Advisors involved with player accounts are set to receive re-training and additional team training, the company outlined, which will involve a specific emphasis on account security and phishing techniques.

If an email change is requested via the live chat, this will also now require mandatory managerial approval from within the EA Advisor team, with additional verification for account ownership also hinted at by the company.

Though these are naturally welcome changes, the FIFA community - driven by the high-profile streamers whose accounts were compromised - have also voiced their frustration at the changes coming too late.

One streamer, Nick - RunTheFUTMarket, has stated that his identity is now being used to apply for credit because of the issues, while another, @NarcoinsFC, suggested that high-profile users were warning EA of issues prior to the hacks.

All in all, it's another turbulent episode for EA in its relationship with the community - one that was also rocked last year during the #EAGate scandal, in which EA employees were investigated for selling in-game cards for real-world money, as well as the viral discussion regarding the 'true cost' of building an Ultimate Team.

This time, the company appears to be making some meaningful changes to user privacy, which can only be a positive for the community.

With fairly consistent issues cropping up in its Ultimate Team game mode, though, it's fair to ponder what the next issue will be for EA.