With all the 2011 hacks to game-related databases, you would think that security would be tighter than ever, but alas, no. Square Enix is the latest victim of the 2011 hacking bandwagon. The Final Fantasy series developer recently announced that it has suspended operations of its Square Enix Members service to investigate an intrusion to one of its servers open to North America and Japan.

According to a statement on the Square Enix website, service was suspended on December 12th and an investigation is underway to determine if the personal information of its users were accessed. The good news is that it doesn’t appear that any credit card details were compromised.

Square Enix is yet another game company in a rather lengthy list to fall victim to the rampant database hacks of 2011, a club that includes names such as Sony, Nexon, Bethesda, Codemasters, Frogster, BioWare and Turbine just to name a few. Maybe some security upgrades are in order.

Read the full statement from Square Enix below.

Update: Square Enix determined during their investigation that no user login creditials were accessed. Good news for fans. The Members services will remain down a few more days while Square Enix conducts a broader investigation. Full message can be found here and pasted below.

Source:

via GamesIndustry.biz

Square Enix website


*** Temporary Suspension of "SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS" Operations ***

We have reason to believe that unknown parties may have gained unauthorized access to a particular Square Enix server related to the free SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS service offered in North America and Japan. In response, Square Enix, Inc. has temporarily suspended operation of the SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS service starting at 10PM (PST) on December 12, 2011.

We are assessing the full extent of this potential breach to determine what data, if any, was compromised and will provide more details as soon as possible. While some personal information may have been accessed, we can confirm that there is no possibility of any credit card information leak from this incident, since the server in question stores no credit card information. We estimate that the suspension will continue for a few days until we complete our investigation and counter-measures. We will update you as we learn more.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by the temporary suspension of the SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS service. We take data security extremely seriously and we regret any inconvenience this may have caused our customers and fans. We appreciate your patience and support at this time.


Temporary Suspension of "SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS" Operations (Update)

As a result of our continuing investigation into the unauthorized intrusion reported yesterday, Square Enix has now determined that user login credentials were not accessed. Moreover, we have not found evidence that the individual was able to access any personal information at all.

We will be sending an email to all SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS advising that an incident took place. This email will not be requesting any action from you.

We have reported this incident to the Japanese Government.

Because we have decided to conduct a broader internal investigation, it will take a few more days before we make the SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS service available once again. We deeply regret the inconvenience this may have caused our customers and fans, and appreciate your patience.


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Last Updated: Mar 14, 2016

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Stacy "Martuk" Jones was a long-time news editor and community manager for many of our previous game sites, such as Age of Conan. Stacy has since moved on to become a masked super hero, battling demons in another dimension.

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