Sega the latest victim in video game hacking epidemic

Sega is the latest video game company to fall prey to hackers, as the Sega Pass network of gaming sites, forums, and customer offers has been taken down and the information connected to 1.3 million accounts stolen.

User names, birthdates, e-mail addresses and passwords were all exposed in the security compromise. Fortunately for users, it did not include any financial information.

"Over the last 24 hours we have identified that unauthorised entry was gained to our Sega Pass database," an email to Sega Pass' European members said. "We immediately took the appropriate action to protect our consumers' data and isolate the location of the breach. We have launched an investigation into the extent of the breach of our public systems."

Though the service remains offline, this hack is minor when compared to the massive PlayStation Network compromise which exposed sensitive data of over 100 million users.

Still, hacker celebrities of the moment LulzSec, who have perpetrated attacks against other video gaming sites such as Minecraft, EVE Online, Nintendo, League of Legends, The Escapist, want to help Sega retaliate.

The group last week tweeted: "Sega - contact us. We want to help you destroy the hackers that attacked you. We love the Dreamcast, these people are going down."

This rash of video game security issues coincides with one of the worst video game sales slumps in nearly five years. Market research firm NPD group says the growth in game downloading has helped contribute to this decline in sales of physical gaming media.

"Game downloading is clearly rising in popularity as free game downloads are becoming more accessible and the need among gamers to have physical packaging for each of their games is beginning to decline," said NPD analyst Matthew Tattle on Monday.