Hacker Group Steals Nintendo Employee Data, Posts $2 Million Ransom
A hacker group calling itself ShadowBytes has claimed responsibility for a data breach targeting Nintendo, alleging the theft of approximately 859 MB of data from TinyPulse, a third-party service used by Nintendo of America for internal employee surveys. The group has demanded a $2 million ransom and threatened to publicly release the stolen data.
According to the hackers’ claims, the compromised dataset includes employee names, email addresses, survey responses, analytics reports, bank statement PDFs, and W-9 tax forms. Nintendo of America has since responded to the breach allegations, downplaying the severity of the incident. The company stated that its own systems were not compromised and that no personal customer or financial data was accessed. Nintendo emphasized that the affected data was limited to internal survey content from a small subset of employees, with most of the information dating back several years.
The breach highlights the security risks associated with third-party services integrated into corporate infrastructure. While Nintendo’s response suggests the direct impact is minimal, the incident underscores the importance of securing employee data and managing third-party vendor relationships.