TOKYO — Nintendo, the manufacturer of the Wii and 3DS game systems, said Sunday that it had been the target of a recent hacker attack, the latest in a flurry of intrusions into corporate Web sites.
Nintendo, which is based in Kyoto, said in a statement that a server at an affiliate of its United States unit was accessed unlawfully “a few weeks ago.” That server contained no consumer information and no data had been lost, the company said.
The attack on Nintendo appears to be significantly less serious than the security breach of Sony’s PlayStation Network, which forced it offline in late April for more than a month. Hackers in that case took personal data from tens of millions of user accounts, including credit card numbers.
Nevertheless, the continuing intrusions underscore the vulnerability of online services at a time companies have raced to expand their Internet offerings.
A hacker group called LulzSec, which has said it was behind several data breaches at Sony, also appeared to claim responsibility for the attack at Nintendo.
In a post on Twitter on Saturday, the group suggested that Nintendo might be spared some of the harsher intrusions it said it had directed at Sony.
“We’re not targeting Nintendo. We like the N64 too much — we sincerely hope Nintendo plugs the gap,” the group said on its Twitter account, referring to the company’s Nintendo 64 game machine, released in the mid-1990s.
LulzSec on Thursday claimed responsibility for breaking into the Sony Pictures Entertainment site and stealing personal information of about 52,000 customers. The group also claimed to have broken into a database for Sony Music’s Japanese site on May 23.
It is a consequential time for Nintendo, as it introduces its e-Shop service for the 3DS, its flagship device that lets users play 3-D games without wearing special glasses.
Nintendo said it has fixed the problem and that the hacking episode would not delay its new online service, the Nintendo e-Shop, which lets users download games for the 3DS hand-held machine. The service will go online Monday in the United States as planned, said Ken Toyoda, a spokesman for Nintendo.
“The server issue was resolved some time ago,” Mr. Toyoda said from Los Angeles, ahead of the annual E3 Expo, a major trade event for the gaming industry.
Gaming companies like Nintendo and Sony Computer Entertainment have been eager to take their businesses online to increase revenue and to compete with the popularity of simple downloadable games played on smartphones and tablet computers.
Sony had been banking on its PlayStation Network as a base for an online universe that would link its gaming consoles, and its TVs, digital music players and other Sony-made devices.
Sony promised in May that it would bolster its online security. It said it was cooperating with the F.B.I. in a wide-ranging investigation.
Other tech giants have been the focus of a global surge in hacker attacks. Last week, Google said that hundreds of users of Gmail had been the targets of clandestine attacks, apparently originating in China.
The attacks were aimed at stealing the passwords and monitoring e-mail from accounts of senior government officials in the United States, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries, military personnel and journalists, Google said.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=bbfac37a0d7b8fb22ecbb21034af05a7
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