Nintendo Claims 1,60,000 user IDs, illegally acquired passwords, data which could have been accessed

Nintendo said on its help page that the hackers could have accessed user information about 1.60,000 accounts in an unauthorized manner. The company said login ids and passwords that were "illegally obtained by some other means than our service" were used to access the users' personal information about "some 'Nintendo accounts'. To execute the intrusion the hackers impersonated the Nintendo Network ID (NNID). Because of this, the company has confirmed it is disabling users' ability to sign in to their accounts using NNID.

Exposing the effect of the breach, Nintendo said roughly 1,60,000 accounts may have been unauthorized. The company also said nickname, date of birth, country/region, and email address may have been viewed by a third party.
To addition to avoiding the use of NNID, Nintendo frequently resets the passwords for the accounts which could have been wrongly accessed.

Nintendo's guidance to consumers also came up with some consumer directions. It notifies the account users having to change their passwords. It told the users not to recycle passwords that were already used on other Nintendo services. The company also asked the clients to use various passwords for NNID and Nintendo accounts.

If someone uses the same passwords, they can use their balance and credit cards for transactions on My Nintendo Store or Nintendo eShop. Users were urged to cancel transactions if they were made without their knowledge.

Nintendo also demanded that its users established a two-step verification to keep their accounts safer.

Although the Nintendo Accounts compromise was announced on Friday, during the ongoing lockdown there were also reports on demand for video game going up. In March, gaming equipment, software, and accessories revenues in the U.S. jumped 35 percent to $1.6 billion (about Rs. 12,200 crores).