After Sony and Capcom, hackers target Bandai Namco: data of hundreds of thousands of players leaked

The wave of cyberattacks on the Japanese gaming and tech sector continues to grow: Bandai Namco has been added to the list of victims, while the country's authorities are preparing a dedicated agency to combat hackers.

Bandai Namco reported a data breach affecting approximately 346,000 users amid a series of hacker attacks on Japanese companies that previously targeted Sony and Capcom.

According to Kyodo News, the leak also affected an unspecified number of customers of Good Smile Company, the manufacturer of Nendoroid and Pop Up figures. Bandai Namco may have exposed email addresses, while Good Smile Company may have also exposed customer addresses and payment details.

On Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced the establishment of a special body as early as next week to combat an unprecedented wave of cyberattacks. Among the affected companies was GMO Internet, a cloud storage service provider. The company offered a reward of about $1 million for information about the perpetrators of the hack.

The sharp rise in hacker activity coincided with the emergence of a new generation of generative AI tools and the discovery of a critical vulnerability in PHP-based software. Earlier, Capcom reported a data leak affecting nearly 12 million people, and Sony reported about 2.6 million users.