Computer game giant Sega falls victim to hackers

Sega is the latest in a series of video games companies to be attacked. 

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent

2:41PM BST 18 Jun 2011

Sega, the computer games giant behind the best selling Sonic the Hedgehog series, has become the latest computer game giant to fall victim to hackers.


The company alerted users of its online Sega Pass network that hackers had managed to obtain personal information.
An email sent to users warned that email addresses, dates of birth and encrypted passwords had been obtained, but no financial information was at risk.
The Sega Pass system was taken offline on Thursday and all users' passwords have been reset.
Customers have been advised to be on the alert for suspicious emails asking for further personal information.
It is the latest in a series of high profile attacks on computer games companies, including Sony and another games company, Codemasters.


In April Sony had data stolen from the 77 million users of the PlayStation network, one of the worst security breaches of its kind.
There was then a second attack when another 24.6 million computer game users might have had their personal details stolen.
Personal information and passwords were taken in the hack on Codemasters earlier this month, but not financial details.
The hackers who claimed responsibility for the Sony attack, LulzSec, have apparently denied the Sega intrusion.
A Tweet using the account @LulzSec said: "@Sega – contact us. We want to help you destroy the hackers that attacked you."
A message on Sega's website simply said: "Sega Pass is going through some improvements so is currently unavailable for new members to join or existing members to modify their details including resetting passwords."
But in an email from Sega to customers, the company said: "We have identified that unauthorised entry was gained to our Sega Pass database.
"We immediately took the appropriate action to protect our consumers' data and isolate the location of the breach. We have launched an investigation into the extent of the breach of our public systems.
"We have identified that a subset of Sega Pass members emails addresses, dates of birth and encrypted passwords were obtained. To stress, none of the passwords obtained were stored in plain text.
"Please note that no personal payment information was stored by Sega as we use external payment providers, meaning your payment details were not at risk from this intrusion."