Japanese game maker to reopen hacked site, says no private data lost

IDG News Service - Japanese game developer Square Enix said Monday that no private data was stolen when a server for a fan site was hacked last week, and it plans to reopen the site to users by the end of the year.

The company shut down the "Square Enix Members" site for the U.S. and Japan last week immediately after finding unknown parties had accessed its server. The hacked machine stores registration details including email addresses, names, addresses and phone numbers on 1.8 million users, but no credit card information.

The European version of the site was not affected.

An investigation has revealed that the database containing the private details was not accessed, so Square Enix aims to have the site up and running by the end of the year, a spokeswoman said. The company has reported the incident to the Japanese government, but did not reveal what part of the server was hit or anything it has discovered on the hackers.

The site provides updates, blogs and community forums on Square Enix games, and has 1 million registered users from Japan and 800,000 from the U.S. Users will be updated on the hacking attack by email.

In May, Square Enix said the web site of a Canadian subsidiary and two product sites had suffered hacking attacks. It said 350 applicants' resumes and up to 25,000 email addresses were stolen in that attack.