It’s not always malicious hackers and purported state actors that expose weaknesses in government systems. Sometime it’s other government agencies as well. This was the case when federal watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, audited and subsequently called out the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for its lax IT security practices.
In July of last year, the infamous hacking group LulzSec managed to compromise the websites belonging to the upper house of the United States legislature.
On the Fourth of July last year, we published a slideshow of 10 hacks targeting US government-affiliated networks. It’s a year later, and, oddly enough, people have continued to attack government networks.
‘Mythic: Stories of Gods and Men’ was yanked from the increasingly popular crowd-funding website, Kickstarter, earlier this year after it became apparent that the game was, in actuality, a sham. Mythic touted itself as an action/strategy based role playing game and managed to raise $4,739 from 83 backers before it was pulled from Kickstarter.
Atari, a pioneer in the early goings of the video gaming world, has struggled to maintain relevancy. A recent breach at one of the company’s former MMORPG developers, Cryptic Studios, could hamper their efforts further. While the breach actually occurred in December 2010, it wasn’t until April 2012, nearly a year and a half later, that it was discovered and made public.
Microsoft, makers of the ubiquitous Xbox gaming console are still looking into an issue with the device’s hard drive that could allow attackers to collect sensitive information about prior users. The investigation started after a group of students from Dakota State University allegedly recovered the credit card information from a refurbished Xbox’s former user earlier
Two minor data breaches affected video game developers Square Enix (Final Fantasy) and Trion Worlds (Rift) late last year, allegedly spilling sensitive information from the company’s servers. The attack against Square Enix hit 1.8 million users – mostly North American and Japanese customers who signed up for the company’s “Square Enix Members” service.
Steam, an online distribution network that hosts countless video game catalogs struck down in November last year after a hacker was able to bypass the site’s message boards and databases. The hackers leaked 35 million customers’ information, including encrypted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card numbers.
Happening almost simultaneously with the hacks at Nintendo, Bethesda, and other firms, the Epic Games hack spilled email addresses and encrypted passwords online and prompted the company to reset all of its users’ passwords.
A cadre of video game companies including Bethesda Softworks, Minecraft and Nintendo was targeted in June when the hacktivist group Lulzsec raided servers belonging to the firms. Bethesda had information on about 200,000 users of its Brink video game pilfered – but not released.
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