Move Over, Sony: Sega Joins 'We Were Hacked' Club

"Games Company Sega Becomes Latest Hacking Victim"
Associated Press, via FoxNews.com (June 18, 2011)

"Video game developer Sega said that its online database has been hacked, making it the latest in a string of games companies to be attacked....

That's the bad news. The good news is that Sega knows about the hack, took its Sega Pas system offline, reset passwords, and sent emails to customers whose accounts were compromised. Even better, the customers' personal payment data was safe. Sega uses "external payment providers."

Now, let's hope that the "external payment providers" don't get hacked.

"...The email stressed that no financial information was at risk and that it has launched a probe into the extent of the breach. It is not immediately clear how many users were affected....

"...The hackers' group that claimed credit for the Sony attack, Lulz Security, had also said it was responsible for the recent breaches of the U.S. Senate computer system and the CIA website...."

And let's not forget Nintendo and the United States Congress. The CIA website that got (sort of) hacked was their for-public-access website, the one that includes the CIA World Factbook. That attack seems to have been more of a denial-of-service hack, than an effort to get at data.

Google's Gmail's another matter - servers in China were used for that hack attack, which China's government insists they didn't do. Their military says the Gmail hack - and probably the others that originated in servers in China - are a Yankee plot to bring down Arab governments. The Lemming's not making that up, and discussed hacks in another blog:

• "What Sony, Nintendo, and Congress, have In Common"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (June 14, 2011)
• "Gmail, China, Knee-Jerk Response, and the Information Age"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (June 4, 2011)

Lulz Security doesn't seem to have been involved in the Sega hack - and they "...said on Twitter Friday that it wanted to help Sega 'destroy the hackers' that attacked it."
(Associated Press, via FoxNews.com)

"Destroy" is a pretty strong verb - but the Lemming thinks that folks who run places like Sony, Nintendo, the CIA, and the Senate office that let hackers into the Senate website, should be more careful.

A lot more careful.

Lulz Security hacked the CIA's public-access website because, they explained, they didn't like the American government. Which is pretty much why they hacked PBS. Why they went after Sony and Nintendo is another question.

Good news, bad news, and the Lemming, again: Lulz Security hacks, but doesn't seem interested in stealing data or doing serious damage. That probably isn't true of everybody who's able to break into other people's servers. Sooner or later, there's going to be a serious breach of online security - and a whole lot of folks are going to wish their credit card and bank accounts, financial records, and other personal data hadn't been stolen.

Or, maybe folks - from the International Monitory Fund, down to your local bank - will find ways of making their data as secure as it's supposed to be.

Related posts:

• "Citibank Card Data Hacked!! (but keep reading)"
  (June 9, 2011)
• "Cloud Computing, Dropbox, and the Postcard Principle"
  (May 13, 2011)
• "Lemming Tracks: Bad News From Sony; and Getting a Grip"
  (May 3, 2011)
• "Lemming Tracks: Epsilon Breach, Spam, and Getting a Grip"
  (April 6, 2011)
• "The Trusted Identities in Cyberspace National ID Card Won't be a National ID Card"
  (January 8, 2011)