Video game publisher Bethesda has warned customers that some of their data - including user names, e-mail addresses and passwords - may have been compromised in an attack on the company's servers.
While no financial or credit card information was revealed in the attack, Bethesda said, the company is recommending all users change their passwords on both Bethesda's sites and any other sites that share the same login information.
"As we don’t know what further plans the hackers may have, we suggest that you keep an eye out for suspicious emails and account activity," the company wrote in an official blog post. "We regret any inconvenience that these attacks on us cause for you. These attacks will be evaluated to determine if there are any additional protections we might take that would be prudent."
A series of tweets from hacker collective Lulzsec Sunday seemed to indicate the group's involvement in the attacks.
"We did it because they couldn't stop us - and did it we did, as you'll see," the group tweeted early Monday morning. "We always deliver."
This latest attack comes following a series of hacks revealing user data stored by video game companies. High-profile attacks on Sony's PSN and SOE servers have been the largest, but the web sites for Eidos, Codemasters and Nintendo have also been compromised in recent weeks.
Spanish police recently arrested three people who allegedly directed the attacks on Sony's servers on behalf of hacking collective Anonymous. Spokespeople for the group have repeatedly denied their involvement in the attacks.
Lulzsec announced this breach over the weekend via twitter (the breach apparently occurred around 2 months ago). They claim embarrassing info is coming.
Why is this happening so much lately? Or has it always happened with this frequency and is just a more newsworthy event after the Sony incidents brought corporate hacking into the internet's attention?
I'm curious about this myself. Has the Sony hack brought this into the spotlight? Or is this a new phenomenon with hackers? What really irks me about all this is that they act like they're doing some righteous act for all mankind but once they're in, they go after the user data. There's nothing righteous for all mankind about that, especially in the cases where they publish that data onto a bit torrent site for all to access
Perhaps it is the classic media feedback cycle where someone gets good ratings for these hacking stories, so more are sought out, and eventually more and more media grab onto this and it becomes out of control, seems like you see another story every day.
Also, the conspiracy theory version is that the media attention given to hacking is an attempt to sway public opinion towards abolishing net neutrality.
But I guess the point is to show that any company who collects user data really needs to focus on security as a primary concern, even if they are focused on selling a product or making money. Not being popular enough to warrant an attack is no longer an adequate defense.
"But I guess the point is to show that any company who collects user data really needs to focus on security as a primary concern"
That's the other thing that baffles me. Why does it seem so easy to pull off lately? I don't know anything about hacking, but it seems like even if you are able to get to the data on their machines, it should be encrypted in such a way as to make it unusable. Is the video game industry just not up-to-par with modern security, or is it just that hard to protect yourself that we are at the mercy of hackers?
Also, the conspiracy theory version is that the media attention given to hacking is an attempt to sway public opinion towards abolishing net neutrality.
But I guess the point is to show that any company who collects user data really needs to focus on security as a primary concern, even if they are focused on selling a product or making money. Not being popular enough to warrant an attack is no longer an adequate defense.
That's the other thing that baffles me. Why does it seem so easy to pull off lately? I don't know anything about hacking, but it seems like even if you are able to get to the data on their machines, it should be encrypted in such a way as to make it unusable. Is the video game industry just not up-to-par with modern security, or is it just that hard to protect yourself that we are at the mercy of hackers?