You could call this the summer of ‘The Great Hack’ as it seems to be the worrying normality in recent times. The Rockstar hack and the leaking of the next GTA title have been a hot topic over the past few days, but we have an update on something that happened back in July. Just a few months ago, we reported about the Bandai Namco hack by a ransomware group and the potential leak of “personal information.” Well, Bandai Namco has now spoken out by saying they ‘can’t deny’ that customer information was potentially leaked following the ongoing investigation into the recent data breach.
The ransomware group called ALPHV claimed to have “ransomed Bandai Namco” in July and suggested that it had obtained quite a few confidential files while hacking the company. Very soon after, Bandai Namco came out and confirmed they had been hacked and would launch a full investigation into the events.
Today is the day that new information regarding the Bandai Namco hack has been revealed, with the company sharing some of the results from the early investigations. The big news is that Bandai Namco has confirmed that it can not rule out the possibility of customer information being leaked, something that was originally claimed to have only affected its Toys and Hobby Business in the Asia region – although Japan was not part of the countries affected.
A spokesperson from the publisher spoke out today and claimed, “As a result of the investigation, it has become clear that the possibility of external leakage of information related to the Toys and Hobby business in the Asian region (excluding Japan) cannot be denied.” The company followed this by saying, “Although we have not yet confirmed any external leakage of information or such claims related to the unauthorized access in question at this point in time, we will continue to pay close attention to the situation.”
This has the potential to be quite worrying, and the fact that the publisher is still trying to protect themselves while also sitting on the fence regarding an actual confirmed answer seems misguided. But the truth is, for something that has become quite a severe issue, the amount of time it has taken the company to even reveal this “news” is quite alarming.
Bandai Namco has said that it has now reinforced its security and IT systems with external agencies – which seems to be the correct protocol – while also inspecting the rest of its worldwide facilities too. Bandai Namco has since apologized to all those involved for the inconvenience this may cause and confirmed that any updates about the situation will be announced as soon as they know anything.
