EA taking steps to remove "faulty" BF3 anti-punkbuster bans

EA has said it's currently in the midst of taking steps over lifting bans deemed "faulty" following a group of hackers dropped the suspensions as part of a hack in protest to anti-cheat program Punkbuster.

"Together with the 3rd party service providers we have taken steps to remove the faulty bans, and improve the protection against future fake bans," the publisher has said in a blog on Battlelog (via GameSpy).

"We have determined that the root cause resulting in the server bans is not directly related to Battlefield 3, but rather related to select 3rd party services which server owners can use in conjunction with PunkBuster to protect their servers.

"If you are able to log in to Battlelog, your account has not been banned by EA or DICE so there is no need to contact Customer Support."

150 bans are thought to have been given out in the wake of the hacking, given out to those playing it on the PC version.

PS3 and 360 players aren't affected due to Punkbuster not being on the console versions.

"We are bringing back the unerring of punkbuster back for a 3rd season," said one of the hackers last week. "We have selected ggc-stream as the target since they have the most streaming bf3 servers and makes it very easy to add fake bans.

“In 2011 we hit them with a mass ban wave and now were are banning real players from battlelog while ggc-stream is totally unaware. We have framed 150+ bf3 players alone.”

DICE has since listed a job posting for an "Anti-cheat administrator," although it's unknown if it's connected to this particular situation.