Safety first!

Nintendo's European website may be the victim of a phishing scam as investigations are underway to determine the severity of the situation.

Until further notice, certain parts of the site have been shut down while Nintendo investigates. Taken from the online notice that's posted on the website, Nintendo warns:

We have learnt of a possible phishing threat to users of the European Nintendo website which we are currently investigating. The protection of our customers is our utmost priority and so we have taken the precaution of immediately shutting down some parts of this website until further notice. We would like to reassure you that we do not hold our customer’s bank, credit card or address details on the European Nintendo website and so this data is not at risk.

Phishing is when someone attempts to find out your personal information, such as usernames and passwords, by pretending to be a trustworthy person or company in an electronic communication such as an email or via a website.

We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused. Please do get in touch with your local Nintendo Customer Services if you have any further concerns.

This incident follows hacker group LulzSec's recent breach into Nintendo's systems. Although no harm was apparently done, a configuration file was taken by the group. Taken from LulzSec's twitter feed:

Re: Nintendo, we just got a config file and made it clear that we didn't mean any harm. Nintendo had already fixed it anyway. <3 them!

Nintendo spokesperson Ken Toyoda did not go into details but clarified that:

There were no third-party victims... But it is a fact there was some kind of possible hacking attack.

It is currently unclear if these two incidents are related.

Thanks to Nintendo Life user Arctic Furnace for sending this in.

[source nintendo.co.uk, via news.yahoo.com]