FIFA 16 YouTube stars with millions of subscribers have been hacked by a cyber gang

A group of FIFA video gamers that show off their skills in YouTube videos have been attacked by a cyber gang, according to the BBC.

The hackers are reported to have stolen millions of FIFA coins, the lucrative in-game currency, and deleted valuable players from teams that have been carefully crafted by the FIFA gamers.

The group targeted some of the most successful FIFA YouTube stars, as well as many other well-known FIFA gamers who don't make YouTube videos.

Those behind the attack are thought to have hacked the accounts by fooling video game producer EA Sports into thinking they were the owner of certain "Origin" accounts that actually belong to FIFA gamers.

Origin is the online platform that players are required to use if they want to access some of the multi-player aspects of EA games. The hackers reportedly convinced EA Sports to transfer their victims' Origin accounts to email addresses the hackers controlled.

AnesonGib, W2S, Nepenthez, Nick28T, Bateson87 and matthdgamer all claim to have been hacked. They have five million subscribers between them.

Matthew Craig, who holds the matthdgamer YouTube account, told the BBC: "There have been about 10 or more accounts which have been hacked over the last two weeks, me included."

Craig, who has over a million subscribers himself, said the hackers deleted Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo from his account. Ronaldo is said to be worth 3.4 million FIFA coins, or £800, according to the BBC, which said it used FIFA exchange rates to determine Ronaldo's true value.

The gang could have used FIFA's online leader boards to pick which users they wanted to attack.

"It's most likely they just went on the leader boards and found the ones with the best Ultimate Team Clubs and targeted us that way," said Craig.

YouTuber Nick28T claims he's had over $2,000 (£1,300) worth of FIFA coins stolen from his account.

In a video, he said: "Basically, someone called in pretending to be me and ... got into my account."

Business Insider is yet to hear back from the EA Sports but the BBC quotes an EA representative saying: "We encourage all FIFA players to secure their accounts with authentication and verification steps, which we outline on our help and our product sites.

"We are consistently working through our customer experience teams to secure accounts and make sure players are educated when account compromises are made."

Craig told the BBC that EA has apologised to him and tried to help as soon as he reported the incident.

"They got my account back, added four or five more security measures, and my account has been fine since," he said.