Neopets, a popular virtual pet-keeping browser game born of the late '90s, has been victim of a data breach. Hackers claiming to be behind the attack say they have personal info of more than 69 million , along with a bunch of the site's source code, and are willing to sell the data off for a fee.
The browser game has been NFTs, it appears to have drawn some unwanted attention. Now, it may have gotten worse, as the company investigates a data breach where customer data may have been taken off its servers. It says names and s connected to the platform may be affected, but email addresses, Neopets s' ages, genders, countries, birth dates, and even IP addresses are allegedly being auctioned off.
The official Neopets Twitter page has posted a warning to s, with the thread strongly recommending s change their Neopets , and any s that use the same (we advise you to never use the same for multiple sites, anyway).
It also notes that the breach is being looked into by a "leading forensics firm," though no name has been given as to which one.
Neopets recently became aware that customer data may have been stolen. We immediately launched an investigation assisted by a leading forensics firm. We are also engaging law enforcement and enhancing the protections for our systems and our data. (1/3)July 21, 2022
The data appears to have been put up for sale on popular hacking forum, Breached.co (via cryptocurrencies for the data. For an additional fee, they're offering live access to the database.
The validity of TarTarX's claims has apparently been confirmed by the hacking site's owner, pompompurin, who tried creating an and was promptly sent their data back. What this means is the hacker may well have continued access to the data, so anyone with enough cryptocurrency to blow can allegedly watch people scramble to change their s and simply nab them after the fact.
If you head to Neopets' security page, it confusingly says that "contrary to what many people claim, no one has ever "hacked into our site" and accessed information, s or names. The ONLY means by which a can have his/her [their, actually] stolen by someone else is when that inadvertently or intentionally gives out their ."
"People like to say they have been hacked, as it makes them feel a little better than itting they have fallen for a scam, or just simply given away their to the first person that asked them for it. However, there are a number of things you can do to help keep your secure."
That statement might be a little out of date now.
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After hearing the news, I tried to delete my through this link, but my initial attempt was met with the message above. I suspect it's something to do with the volume of people likely deleting their s right now.
A second attempt then finally allowed me to delete my , and I'm sorry to be leaving but, and I suspect plenty of people (particularly parents of younger s) will be following suit.
