Personal info not compromised in Square Enix hack

Security breaches were one of the biggest stories of 2011, thanks to high-profile hacks to companies like Sony, Nintendo, and Valve. Square Enix was added to that list last week, when the company revealed a breach had occurred that may have affected gamers in North America and Japan.

The good news is that those who have accounts with the Square Enix Members service no longer need fear that their personal information was compromised due to the intrusion. This week, the company confirmed that the database containing registrants' personal information was not accessed during the security breach.

"As a result of our continuing investigation, we have now confirmed that the database in which we store personal information was NOT accessed during the recent server intrusion," the company said in a statement. "Therefore, your personal information was NOT compromised by an unknown third party." (emphasis in original)

In addition to the site (which serves as a blog for the publisher's products and gathering place for fans), Square Enix Members is a loyalty program where customers who register their games with the site can earn a variety of rewards. Past rewards have included special postcards, a messenger bag, and an engraved 8GB iPod Touch.

Square Enix has previously confirmed that the hacker did not obtain users' login credentials and that the incident had been reported to the Japanese government. The publisher went on to note that it plans to reopen its Members service by the end of the year. Square Enix expects to have specific details on its service restoration soon.