Nintendo’s data breach affected 300,000 users

Nintendo’s user account breach back in April, which at the time was thought to have affected 160,000 accounts, may have in fact involved an additional 140,000 – for a total of 300,000 users affected by the hack (via Eurogamer).

In an update to its support site (in Japanese) Nintendo addressed the breach, saying it has contacted those affected, and reset the Nintendo Network ID and Nintendo account passwords. Those affected by the hack had their nicknames, email, date of birth, gender and country made viewable by a third party.

Nintendo also addressed the breach in a new statement, saying:

“We would like to provide an update on the recent incidents of unauthorised access to some Nintendo Accounts.

“While there is no evidence that Nintendo’s databases, servers or services were breached, and while we can confirm that no credit card information was compromised, we took precautionary measures to help safeguard our customers. We discontinued the ability to use a Nintendo Network ID to sign in to a Nintendo Account, and we reached out to all customers whose accounts we had reason to believe were accessed without authorisation to help them take additional steps to protect themselves.

“If someone becomes aware of unauthorised activity using a Nintendo Account, we encourage them to take the steps outlined in the article about the Nintendo Account recovery process or visit https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/Welcome-to-Nintendo-Support-11593.html for general support.

“In addition, we strongly encourage all our customers to employ strong, unique passwords and enable two-step verification for their Nintendo Account as instructed here: How to set up two-step verification for a Nintendo Account.

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused and will continue working to safeguard our platforms and our customers’ data.”