Roughly 160,000 Nintendo Accounts Compromised by April Hack

Nintendo has advised users to activate a two-step authentication on their accounts after 160,000 users were reportedly compromised in early April.

“We would like to provide an update on the recent incidents of unauthorized access to some Nintendo Accounts,” the message posted to their official support page reads:

While we continue to investigate, we would like to reassure users that there is currently no evidence pointing towards a breach of Nintendo’s databases, servers or services. As one action in our ongoing investigation, we are discontinuing the ability to use a Nintendo Network ID to sign in to a Nintendo Account. All other options to sign-in to a Nintendo Account remain available.

“As a further precaution,” Nintendo continued, “we will soon contact users about resetting passwords for Nintendo Network IDs and Nintendo Accounts that we have reason to believe were accessed without authorization.” The company further reassured customers that they do not believe the hack extended to “other areas of its global gaming network.”

Nintendo also urged its users to “enable two-step verification for their Nintendo Account” to enhance security. Notably, that process requires users to utilize the Google Authenticator to do so. Users hoping to avoid putting more of their data in the hands of the infamously untrustworthy data farmer are out of luck.

The entertainment company also preemptively defended its decision to remain opaque about the precise nature of the security breach, saying: “During the investigation, in order to deter further attempts of unauthorized sign-ins, we will not reveal more information about the methods employed to gain unauthorized access.”

Finally, Nintendo extended a typically corporate apology to affected consumers: “We apologize for the inconvenience and concerns caused to our customers, and we will continue working hard to safeguard the security of our users’ data,” they concluded. Of course, consumer confidence in that commitment remains to be seen.