Nintendo Suffers From Data Leaks Repeatedly. Is It Because the Popularity of Animal Crossing Has Alarmed Hackers?
Nintendo Switch has been selling like hot cakes this year, and has even been hyped up as a financial product. But the surge in users has also provided opportunities for hackers. Not long ago, Nintendo confirmed that more than 160,000 accounts were hacked. And recently, the largest data leak in history broke out.
Speaking of the most popular games this year, "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" (hereinafter referred to as "Animal Crossing") must be one of them.
Thanks to this successful game, Nintendo's products sold really well and made them a lot of money.
However, the huge sales of games such as "Animal Crossing" have also attracted hackers to target Nintendo. This veteran gaming company has recently suffered a series of serious data leaks.
The game is a big hit, and hackers are also waiting for an opportunity to take action
Since its launch on March 20, Animal Crossing has quickly become a global hit, quickly taking over online social media platforms and becoming a phenomenal game that is popular among young people.
Within three days of its release, the sales of physical cartridges of "Animal Crossing" reached 1.88 million copies, breaking the first-week sales record for Switch games and topping the Switch game sales charts in the UK and the US.
The popularity of games has also boosted the sales of game consoles. According to data from market research company NPD Group, Nintendo Switch sales in the United States in March 2020 were more than double that of the same period last year. The domestic price of Switch has even increased from the original price of 2,100 yuan to 4,000 yuan.
Due to the shortage of supply, Nintendo has recently notified suppliers such as parts factories and workpiece assembly plants to expand production.
In contrast to the popularity of the game and its soaring sales, Nintendo has recently suffered a series of serious data leaks.
Source code leak: 2 TB of confidential documents made public
On May 3, a netizen broke the news on the forum that a large amount of Nintendo data had been uploaded to the forum. The leaked data was information about Nintendo's old consoles, but the total amount of data reached an astonishing 2 TB.
Although the Switch was not affected, the source code, even development documents, and technical demonstrations of previous generations of game consoles such as N64, NGC, and Wii were posted on forums such as 4chan.
According to the ResetEra forum, the leaked data may have come from BroadOn, a Nintendo partner company (hired to develop most of the Wii's hardware and software), and hackers obtained important Wii information by attacking BroadOn servers.
The more serious part is that the leaked data contains block diagrams of various parts of the Wii and Verilog files. The latter are used to describe electronic circuits and systems, and someone with the right expertise can basically recreate every component of the Wii from this data.
In addition to Wii and N64 console-related information, a large number of "Pokemon"-related files were also leaked, including the debug version and source code of "Pokemon Yellow/Blue", "Pokemon Gold/Silver", and the debug version of "Pokemon Sun and Moon/Ultimate Sun and Moon".
Coincidentally, this is the largest data leak in Nintendo's history and the second security incident in the past month. Prior to this, more than 100,000 users' Switch accounts were hacked. Account hacking: 160,000 user data exposed
In April, a Twitter user said that he suspected that Nintendo had a major security vulnerability. Later, there were rumors that Nintendo's membership accounts were hacked and a large number of Switch players' account information was stolen.
Nintendo later confirmed that hackers had been hacking into NNID since early April, affecting more than 160,000 accounts. There is a risk of malicious purchases.
NNID stands for Nintendo Network ID, which is Nintendo's previous account system, used for consoles such as the 3DS series and Wii U.
According to Nintendo, the stolen 160,000 account information may include their Nintendo account nicknames, birthdays, countries/regions, and email addresses. In addition, hackers may also obtain other information such as name and gender through accounts associated with NNID.
Nintendo has sent an email to affected users to inform them of the situation and provide a corresponding solution.
Players have previously reported that their account funds have inexplicably decreased, and many users have found that their money was used to buy V-Bucks (V coins), the trading currency in "Fortnite".
Nintendo told affected users to contact the company so they can investigate their purchase history and cancel the corresponding transactions.
Security Attack and Defense: How Will Nintendo Respond?
Nintendo began investigating the security breach after the leak came to light in April.
To further prevent theft, the company said it would contact users as soon as possible to reset the NNID and Nintendo account passwords that were accessed without authorization. In addition, the company recommends that users follow the following two points to ensure greater account security:
- Change the passwords associated with your Nintendo Account and NNID account;
- It is recommended that all users set up two-step authentication (2FA) login method, which is safer.
However, Nintendo has not yet responded to the data leak incident exposed on May 3.
Some players analyzed that Nintendo would most likely file an appeal for such a serious information leak. Others were worried that the exposed files were only a small part, and a large amount of data was still in the hands of hackers.
Let's wait and see what operations Nintendo will rely on to overcome the tribulation this time.
