Bethesda “Attempted” Hack

Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda is reporting an “attempted” hack has netted user info, casting further doubt on the ability or trustworthiness of game companies when it comes to securing user data.

Their announcement:

Over the past weekend, a hacker group attempted an unlawful intrusion of our websites to gain access to data. We believe we have taken appropriate action to protect our data against these attacks.

While no personal financial information or credit card data was obtained, the hackers may have gained access to some user names, email addresses, and/or passwords. As a precaution, we recommend that all our fans immediately change passwords on all our sites, including our community forums, statistics site for Brink, and here on the blog.

If your username/email address/password is similar to what you use on other sites, we recommend changing the password at those sites as well. As we don’t know what further plans the hackers may have, we suggest that you keep an eye out for suspicious emails and account activity.

We regret any inconvenience that these attacks on us cause for you. These attacks will be evaluated to determine if there are any additional protections we might take that would be prudent.

It might come as news to hackers potentially sitting on a pile of email addresses and passwords that they have merely “attempted” a hack – apparently the theft of personal information other than credit card details is now so routine it can be brushed off as a mere failure to get at the good stuff.