Breach compromises 13 million online gaming accounts

November 29, 2011 18:13
The Korean Communications Commission recently confirmed that a data breach suffered by video game manufacturer Nexon compromised the accounts of approximately 13.2 millions subscribers, leaking a variety of personal information.

The Korean Communications Commission recently confirmed that a data breach suffered by video game manufacturer Nexon compromised the accounts of approximately 13.2 millions subscribers, leaking a variety of personal information.

KCC regulators, police officials and computer security experts continue to the investigate the incident, according to Reuters, but early reports suggest that gamers' names, user IDs, passwords and resident registration numbers have been leaked. However, company officials noted that no financial transactions or banking information have been compromised and subscribers located outside of Korea were unaffected by the incident.

According to the Korea Times, the network intrusion affected a backup server supporting the company's most popular game - MapleStory. The title boasts approximately 100 million subscribers across 60 countries, but the data breach was localized to approximately 70 percent of the 18 million domestic gamers frequenting the system.

Although company officials contend that strong data encryption will limit the damage associated with the incident, gamers were encouraged to change their password for MapleStory and any other online accounts using the same login credentials.  

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