14 DAY TRIAL // Notorious hacking outfit LulzSec has hacked into Bethesda Softworks' computer network and leaked information about accounts registered on its websites.
Bethesda Softworks, a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media, is one of the most appreciated game developers and is responsible for extremely popular series like The Elder Scrolls or Fallout.
It's not entirely clear why LulzSec targeted this particular company, but the hackers said before the dump that "we did it because they couldn't stop us - and did it we did, as you'll see."
The data posted online includes a large number of email addresses extracted from the company's official blog, the registration site for its latest game, BRINK, and its jobs portal.
LulzSec claims to have actually held back on publishing the personal data of over 200,000 BRINK players. "Please find enclosed everything we took, excluding one thing - 200,000+ Brink users," the group wrote in its announcement.
"We actually like this company and would like for them to speed up the production of Skyrim [the next Elder Scrolls title], so we'll give them one less thing to worry about," it added.
In addition to the dumped data, the hacking outfit claims to extracted source code related to Quake 4, the popular title developed by id Software, now also a ZeniMax Media subsidiary.
Bethesda acknowledged the hack and advised users to change their passwords on all of its websites, including the community forums and the BRINK player statistics site.
"We believe we have taken appropriate action to protect our data against these attacks. While no personal financial information or credit card data was obtained, the hackers may have gained access to some user names, email addresses, and/or passwords," the company said.
Users are also strongly advised to change their passwords on other websites where they might have used them. They should also be on alert for phishing emails and strange account behavior.
Even though LulzSec doesn't care much about the opinion of others, the gaming community expressed its disapproval of this attack, mainly because it was directed at Bethesda, a company they hold dear. Some gamers commented that other developers or publishers would have deserved it a lot more.