Evidently, now is a good time to exploit the data protection limitations of the video game industry. Following the recent attacks to Sony's PlayStation Network and Nintendo, British game developer Codemasters has reportedly been hacked as well.
According to a recent BBC News report, earlier this month, hackers managed to access Codemasters' databases and stole the personal information of thousands of users, including names, passwords, addresses, email addresses, dates of birth, Xbox gamer tags and IP addresses.
Codemasters did say that payment details, such as credit card numbers, were not stolen.
While the company said it did not yet know who was responsible for the attack, it has taken steps to mitigate the threat. According to the news provider, Codemasters has taken its website offline and has issued warnings to customers to change their passwords.
This is the third high-profile cyberattack against a video game company in recent months. In April, Sony revealed that hackers had compromised the information of more than 100 million PSN account holders. The attack – and Sony's response – led to a huge media debacle and a great deal of criticism of the electronic giant's data security practices.
Earlier this month, Nintendo announced that it had been attacked by mischievous hacker group LulzSec, the Wall Street Journal reported. According to the report, Nintendo claimed that no customer information was compromised due to the attack, though the incident does reflect what seems to be a growing trend in the gaming industry.
Companies across all industries – particularly those that handle consumer information – need to take measure to ensure sensitive information is not exploited by hackers, malware or other cyber attacks. Failing to do so can result in fines, as well as significant damage to a company's reputation.
