Hackstravaganza Pt. 234: Hackers Hit Bethesda, Take Personal Info
Posted 06/13/2011 at 8:16pm | by Nathan Grayson of www.MaximumPC.com
We'd say “this is getting ridiculous,” but it passed ridiculous and rounded the corner into DownrightLoonyVille (copyright Zynga, all rights reserved) a long time ago. After Sony so kindly lowered its gates to kick off the trend, hackers stormed their way into SOE, Deus Ex, Nintendo of America, and Codemasters – to name a few. And now they've struck Skyrim and Fallout developer Bethesda, too – primarly, well, because they can.
“We were going to keep this little treasure chest to ourselves, but it appears the hand has been bitten. Say your prayers, Brink users,” notorious hacking group Lulz Sec said on Twitter prior to launching a full-scale assault.
Having weathered the storm, Bethesda is asking users to give their usernames and passwords post-hackpocalypse makeovers. Thankfully, however, your credit card info is safe – having merely, you know, fallen into the hands of hundreds of other hackers during their raids on other game publishers.
“Over the past weekend, a hacker group attempted an unlawful intrusion of our websites to gain access to data. We believe we have taken appropriate action to protect our data against these attacks. While no personal financial information or credit card data was obtained, the hackers may have gained access to some user names, email addresses, and/or passwords. As a precaution, we recommend that all our fans immediately change passwords on all our sites,” Bethesda wrote on its official site.
If nothing else, this whole fiasco has shown that Sony wasn't the only videogame company with a giant neon “Please, Take Everything Our Users Have Ever Known and Loved” sign where its security system should have been. And in that respect, we have to admit that these hackers – whether misunderstood vigilantes or full-on, punch-in-the-throat-deserving jerks – are doing the industry a favor. From now on, gaming companies will have to wise up and realize that hackers are going to huff, puff, and blow flimsy security systems down. Or at least, we really hope so.