Full extent of Sega hack revealed

Following a security breach last week, Sega has revealed the true extent of the data loss suffered in its recent hack.

In total the personal details of some 1.3m customers were compromised. The information included names, emails, dates of birth and passwords – though the latter at least were encrypted.

"We express our sincerest apologies to our customers for the inconvenience and concern caused by this matter," Sega said.

"After the unauthorised entry was identified, we immediately stopped the Sega Pass service and took emergency action to prevent further damage. This action included immediately contacting all our registered Sega Pass users. We are now fully investigating the cause of the incident.

"We have also examined the possibility of any other information loss from unauthorised access across our other services and can confirm there are no other verified incidents.

"We deeply regret that such unauthorised access occurred. We will go on to further strengthen our network security as a priority issue and strive to prevent any potential recurrence."

Hacker group LulzSec – the default suspects for such as attack – have publicly denied any involvement.

In fact, the group has gone as far as to offer a helping hand (albeit a legally dubious one) to the publisher.

Sega – contact us," it said in a statement on Twitter. "We want to help you destroy the hackers that attacked you. We love the Dreamcast, these people are going down."