Sony, Nintendo say attacks didn't expose user data

Sony Corp, already targeted by hacker intrusions that exposed more than 100 million customer accounts, said a new breach in Europe didn’t compromise user data, while rival Nintendo Co said a server was attacked.

No protected data was accessed during the attack on Sony’s European website, said Atsuo Omagari, a company spokesman. Nintendo, the world’s largest maker of handheld video-game players, said the server attacked May 16 didn’t contain consumer information.

Shares of Sony fell, extending declines this year amid breaches that the Tokyo-based company has estimated may cost about 14 billion yen ($173 million). The widening of attacks to include Nintendo shows large companies doing business internationally are especially at risk, said Yusuke Tsunoda, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Securities Co in Tokyo

“Nintendo and Sony are big, global names,” Tsunoda, who rates Nintendo’s shares “neutral,” said in a phone interview today. “Companies with international ambitions need to be aware of these risks. This applies not just to game makers.”

A group called LulzSec posted data on the Internet that it said was a “server configuration file,” or data for programming purposes, from a Nintendo server, the Wall Street Journal reported. The group previously said it broke into a Sony website and downloaded information from 1 million customer accounts.

“This particular situation was a server configuration issue that we investigated and resolved a few weeks ago,” the US unit of Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo said in a statement e- mailed to Bloomberg News yesterday. “The server contained no consumer information.”

Ken Toyoda, a spokesman for Nintendo in Kyoto, declined to comment today on the source of the attack or to elaborate on any measures the company is taking in response.

“There has been no significant damage to Nintendo or to our customers,” Toyoda said in a phone interview.

Sony said the latest intrusion only accessed information that was available publicly.