Many users on social media reported that unauthorized purchases were made by the connected payment system on the Nintendo e-shop. According to CNET, most of these purchases were related to buying the virtual currency (v-bucks) of Fortnite and other digital games. Nintendo asserted that no information related to credit cards was stolen during the breach. Now Nintendo is reporting that the hackers may have accessed an additional 140,000 accounts. Nintendo terminated the service of logging-in via the Nintendo Network IDs and reset the passwords of all affected accounts. The company is advising its user to use a two-step verification method to ensure security and privacy. Many other gaming stores, mainly the Epic games store has made it mandatory for the users to use its two-step verification protocol to ensure privacy and safety from such breaches. Nintendo released a statement on its Japanese site. It states, “We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused and concern to our customers and related parties, in the future; we will make further efforts to strengthen security and ensure safety so that similar events do not occur.” Lastly, the gaming community has mixed views regarding the two-step verification method. However, if one takes into account the number of pirated games on PC and stolen accounts on all major console platforms, one would think that it is possibly the only way forward.
