Game Freak Confirms Data Breach With Statement; Already Contacting Employees Who Had Their Data Stolen

by James Lara October 13, 2024 6:30 pm in News
game freak data breach

A massive data breach has occurred at Game Freak, and though some had thought that it wasn’t true, source code, employee information, and details on unreleased Pokemon games, movies, and even the Switch successor soon leaked online. A day after the leaks, Game Freak, the developers behind the Pokemon franchise, finally confirmed that the breach was real and that they’re already taking action.

Game Freak Statement Confirms Breach

Issuing the statement on their official website, here’s what Game Freak had to say n(via Google translate) about the breach and what they’ve done.

GAME FREAK Inc. (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, CEO: Satoshi Tajiri, hereinafter referred to as “our company”) has discovered that personal information of our employees and others was leaked in connection with unauthorized access to our servers by a third party in August 2024. We sincerely apologize for the great inconvenience and concern this has caused to all those involved.

Leaked personal information

Personal data regarding our employees, etc.

Items: Name, company email address Number of cases: 2,606 *Our employees, contract workers (including former employees and ex-employees)

Response to those whose personal information has been leaked We are contacting the affected employees individually. For those who cannot be contacted individually due to leaving the company, etc., we will notify them through this announcement and set up a contact point to respond to inquiries regarding this matter.

Measures to prevent recurrence

We have already rebuilt and re-inspected the server, and will strive to prevent recurrence by further strengthening our security measures.

Like any data breach, it’s unfortunate to see this happen. While the idea of being able to get a peak at some of the inner workings of game development is exciting to some, it often, if not always, comes with employee data being stolen, shared, and stolen on the web. Let us hope nothing major comes to anyone who had their info posted, and that Game Freak is doing all they can to help them if it does.

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James Lara

A gamer at heart, James has been working for MP1st for the last decade to do exactly what he loves, writing about video games and having fun doing it. Growing up in the 90's gaming has been in his DNA since the days of NES. One day he hopes to develop his own game.