Nintendo disables Nintendo Network ID login after account break-ins

Nintendo confirms that more than 160,000 accounts have been stolen. The company has therefore disabled logging in with a Nintendo Network ID. The accounts have been dealing with unauthorized logins for the past few days.

According to Nintendo, no passwords were stolen in the attacks and there is no indication of a breach of Nintendo’s databases, servers or services. It’s not clear exactly how the criminals got into the accounts, but according to Nintendo, no credential stuffing was used. The attackers entered through the Nintendo Network ID. That has been disabled as a precaution.

In addition to stopping Nintendo Network ID logins, Nintendo will perform password resets for accounts and NNIDs used for illegal logins. Nintendo reports on its Japanese site that the user name, date of birth, country and email address of the 160,000 affected accounts may have been accessed by unauthorized persons.

In addition, the company warns that anyone who had the same password for their NNID and Nintendo Account runs the risk of their credit card and Paypal information being misused for purchases from the Nintendo Store or eShop. Nintendo always recommends creating unique passwords for services. Earlier this week, Nintendo called on users to turn on two-factor authentication.

Nintendo Network ID is a six to sixteen character identifier used to register on Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Last week saw a large number of reports from Nintendo users that their account had been hijacked. So it turns out that the criminals misused Nintendo Network IDs associated with the accounts.