Nintendo Is Investigating Reports of Unauthorized Logins

Over the weekend, a number of reports came in that indicated that Nintendo accounts were being accessed by unauthorized users from a variety of different locations, leading folks to believe that there had been some kind of security breach. There’s a handy history of logins under Nintendo’s account settings, which should show you where folks have been accessing your account from — and that’s how many seemingly discovered that unnamed third parties have been signing in. Nintendo has since released a statement indicating that it is investigating these reports, and suggested everyone enable two-factor authentication (or 2-Step Verification as the settings refer to it) in the meantime.

“We are aware of reports of unauthorised access to some Nintendo Accounts and we are investigating the situation,” a Nintendo spokesperson told Eurogamer. “In the meantime, we recommend that users enable two-step verification for their Nintendo Account as instructed here: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/Nintendo-Switch/How-to-Set-Up-2-Step-Verification-for-a-Nintendo-Account-1466677.html.”

“If any users become aware of unauthorised activity,” the statement continues, “we encourage them to take the steps outlined at https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/Nintendo-Account/Nintendo-Account-Recovery-Process-1658054.html or visit https://support.nintendo.com for general support.”

At this point, it’s unclear exactly what’s going on here, as it could be some sort of direct access to these accounts via Nintendo itself or through some other unrelated hack which revealed shared passwords and so on, but it sounds like Nintendo is taking it fairly seriously. Online data breaches aren’t exactly uncommon, with the recent report that Webkinz, for example, saw 23 million usernames and passwords shared online in the wake of one for example. Two-step verification isn’t exactly a foolproof solution, but it does provide more security than not having it set, and security experts regularly recommend having it rather than not.

The Nintendo Switch is now available wherever such things are sold, assuming you can find one during the ongoing shortage. The same goes for the Nintendo Switch Lite. You can check out all of our previous coverage of Nintendo right here.