Just a little over a week after Ubisoft reported being hit by a massive hacking attack, compromising user names, passwords, and email addresses, Konami is now singing a familiar tune. The studio most famous for the Metal Gear Solid series, among countless other franchises, is reporting that over 35,000 accounts were accessed without proper authorization some time between June 13 – July 7.
According to Konami, the information hackers potentially obtained includes: names, addresses, birth dates, telephone numbers, and email addresses. They do note that, as of yet, “no changes to customers’ personal information, or unauthorized usage of paid services, have been detected.”
In response to the break-in, “Konami has strengthened its security and raised its monitoring level, and measures have been taken to ensure that IDs and passwords involved in these unauthorized logins can no longer be used to log in.” They believe the break-in was the result of information leaked from an external service provider. As such, folks who use the same log in information for both their Konami ID and external services should change their user names and passwords of each individual service immediately.
As always, Konami has issued emails and provided direct links to reset the passwords of everyone affected. However, even if you don’t receive one of these emails and are believed to be unaffected by the break-in, it is strongly recommended you reset your password.
It’s a scary reality that hacks happen and sensitive personal information can be exposed; but the overwhelming number of gaming companies being affected in such a short span of time is increasingly worrisome. Hopefully, more companies become proactive, rather than reactive, and take precautions to increase their security systems in light of these cyber-attacks. I’d certainly feel a little bit better heading into this socially-connected next generation of consoles if publishers would make the extra effort to put my security before any exciting new functionality.
Did you folks receive an email from Konami? Have you registered your Gamertags/PSN names through any recently released Konami games? Make sure to reset your passwords as soon as possible, and don’t forget to like IGXPro on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or give us the ‘ol +1 on Google+. If you can’t get enough of my shenanigans, (who could blame you?) you can check me out @GamingsNirvana, or add +VinnyParisi to your circles.
