ForHacSec

Updated: Hackers have broken into two websites belonging to Japanese video games maker Square Enix.

The company confirmed that the e-mail addresses of up to 25,000 customers who had registered for product updates may have been stolen as a result.

Resumes of 350 people applying for jobs in its Canadian office could also have been copied from the web servers.

Square Enix, which makes the popular Final Fantasy, Deus Ex and Tomb Raider games, apologised for the breach.

In a statement, it said: “Square Enix can confirm a group of hackers gained access to parts of our Eidosmontreal.com website as well as two of our product sites.

“We immediately took the sites offline to assess how this had happened and what had been accessed, then took further measures to increase the security of these and all of our websites, before allowing the sites to go live again.”

It is understood that the websites affected were Eidosmontreal.com, run by Square Enix’s subsidiary Eidos, and Deusex.com, a promotional site for the forthcoming game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Graham Cluley, a consultant at security firm Sophos, warned that both leaks could cause problems for the individuals concerned.

“With the e-mail there is a danger that gamers could be e-mailed by someone pretending to be from the company who gets them to click on a link or run some malicious software,” he told BBC News.

“The resumes are a blueprint for identity theft. They have everything that scammers want. The only thing missing is credit card information.”

Mr Cluley pointed out that there was also the potential for huge embarrassment as it was unlikely those who had applied for jobs would want their current employers to know.

Square Enix said there was no evidence that the information had been distributed.

It also emphasised that the company does not hold customers’ credit card data on its web servers.

Shortly after the attack, both websites displayed the message “Owned by Chippy1337”, as well as several other known hacker names, including Xero, XiX and Venuism.

However, it appears that some or all of those names may have been misappropriated by the real attackers.

Logs of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) conversations have appeared on the online, which appear to show the perpetrators discussing the hack as they carried it out.

In one section, the individuals taking part wrote: “We put it in the name of chippy1337 and write the names ryan, dfs, xero, nikon, xix, venuism and evilhom3r.

The same person then added the comment, “lol [laugh out loud]”.

Security in the video games industry has been in the spotlight in recent weeks after the hacking attacks on Sony’s PlayStation Network and SOE online multiplayer system.

The personal details of around 100 million users were stolen from the company’s servers.

Investigations into the source of the data breach are continuing, with specialist computer forensic teams and the FBI getting involved.

The PlayStation Network remains offline, more than three weeks after the intrusion was discovered.

Updated –

Eidos has revealed that resumes of job hunters and email addresses of video game fans have been stolen by hackers in an attack on the Eidos and “Deus Ex: Human Revolution” websites.

Square Enix, the parent company of Eidos, confirmed the hack in a PDF press release. (Why do companies publish their press releases as PDFs, anyway? That’s just daft.)

Here’s part of the statement from Square Enix:

Square Enix can confirm a group of hackers gained access to parts of our Eidosmontreal.com website as well as two of our product sites. We immediately took the sites offline to assess how this had happened and what had been accessed, then took further measures to increase the security of these and all of our websites, before allowing the sites to go live again.

Eidosmontreal.com does not hold any credit card information or code data, however there are resumes which are submitted to the website by people interested in jobs at the studio. Regrettably up to 350 of these resumes may have been accessed, and we are in the process of writing to each of the individuals who may have been affected to offer our sincere apologies for this situation. In addition, we have also discovered that up to 25,000 email addresses were obtained as a result of this breach. These email addresses are not linked to any additional personal information. They were site registration email addresses provided to us for users to receive product information updates.

There are two main risks here.

One threat is that if your email address is one of the 25,000 that has been stolen, you could receive a scam email (perhaps containing a malicious link or attached Trojan horse) that pretends to come from a video game company. After all, the hackers know that you’re interested enough in video games to give your email address to Eidos.

Secondly, the resumes from job hunters. This is a more serious problem. Just think of all the personal information you include on your CV: full name, date of birth, email and home address, telephone number, job history. This kind of information is a god-send to identity thieves interested in defrauding internet users.

So, it seems Sony is not the only video game company to be having problems with its computer security.

Lets hope the continuing stream of stories of companies having customer data stolen from them makes them take security more seriously in the future.