Nintendo has revealed that an additional 140,000 user accounts were accessed by unauthorized means back in April. Previously, the company had said that only 160,000 accounts were affected and was slow to acknowledge the problem at the time.
The news will come as a worry to those who are concerned about the security of their Nintendo Account and Nintendo Switch, although Nintendo stressed that less than one percent of all Nintendo Network ID (NNID) users were affected by the breach.
The security breach saw unauthorized users hijack vulnerable accounts using illegally obtained NNID information (which was required to make purchases on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS). To make matters worse, some hackers took advantage of users’ saved PayPal details to purchase various in-game currencies, such as Fortnite’s VBucks.
Nintendo has since reset all NNID and Nintendo Account passwords that were hacked, and disabled Nintendo Account sign-in via NNID. It’s still not possible to log-in via your NNID at the time of writing.
Step it up
If you haven’t already done so, Nintendo recommends that all users should enable 2-Step Verification as an additional layer of security. You can follow the steps from the company’s support page, which will guide you through the entire process, or follow our simple guide.
If you’re worried about whether your account has been breached, you can check if you’ve had any unwanted access on your account by viewing the ‘Sign-in History’ on the ‘Sign-in and Security Settings’ page.
Via Eurogamer
