Japanese publisher Koei Tecmo announced during the Christmas holidays that some personal data of 65,000 users of its English-language website had been hacked, prompting the company to take its US and UK websites offline for the time being.
“Within the website operated by KTE, the ‘Forum’ page and the registered user information (approximately 65,000 entries) were determined with the data that may have been broken, ‘Koei Tecmo announced. in a press release on December 25, reported for the first time by BleepingComputer. “The user data that was leaked through hacking is considered the (optional) account name and related password (encrypted) and / or registered e-mail address.”
The publisher – who is responsible for the Dynasty Warrior series, including several Musou plays and the recent Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity—writes that the hack is apparently isolated on its forum pages and does not contain any credit card information. Cow Tecmo added that he does not yet know who launched the cyber attack, and that he believes the likelihood that the leaks are related to a ransomware attack is low.
In addition to reporting data breaches to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (AVG), the publisher has also temporarily shut down US and UK websites. “Due to the possibility of an external cyber attack on this site, it will be temporarily shut down while we investigate the issue,” reads a single line of text that appears when you Cow Tecmo America website.
Unlike the recent expanded cyber attack on Capcom in November, which affected corporate information such as sales reports and development documents, it appears that the breach of the data was isolated on players’ emails and passwords.
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“Cow Tecmo apologizes for the concern and inconvenience this may cause to its customers and business partners,” the publisher wrote in its press release. “For individuals who have had their email addresses leaked, Koei Tecmo is determined to take the appropriate measures and act in good faith thereafter.”
Cow Tecmo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Correction: The report has been updated to reflect the first time the data breach was reported by the BleepingComputer website.