Researchers have uncovered a vulnerability in EA's Origin platform which allows malicious code to be remotely executed on players' computers.

The news came as Origin celebrated crossing the 40 million user mark.

The vulnerability was demonstrated last week at the Black Hat security conference in Amsterdam, by researchers from Malta-based security firm ReVuln.

The computers of users who have Origin links open by default could be hacked with no input from the user, ReVuln told Ars Technica.

"An attacker can craft a malicious Internet link to execute malicious code remotely on [a] victim's system which has Origin installed,” wrote ReVuln researchers Donato Ferrante and Luigi Auriemma.

The exploit was possible on Macs as well as PCs, they added.

"Our team is constantly investigating hypotheticals like this one as we continually update our security infrastructure," said an EA spokesman.

Last year, a similar exploit was uncovered on Steam by the same researchers.

Until a fix is released, ReVuln is advising those who want to protect themselves to make sure they are prompted before Origin links are processed.