Game refutes hack attack claims

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - 09:59 by Graham Miller

At the start of the week a report was doing the rounds on the internet, alleging that the e-commerce site for high street retail chain, Game, had been hacked by an unknown group, resulting in the theft of customer information.

However, just a few hours after the story appeared on sites including Softpedia, it was made clear by the team behind Game.co.uk that their systems had not been compromised and that there was no threat to the customers who had carried out safe shopping online via its digital store.

The original story contained claims that usernames and passwords had been posted online for anyone to download following the hack, but Game spokesperson, Anna-Marie Mason, said that the information that was available did not actually relate to anyone who had registered with the site.

Mason said that concerned users should get in touch with the customer service representatives working for Game either via email, Twitter or Facebook.

It seems slightly odd that anyone would fabricate a story about the hacking of a major retailer's site when it seems so easy to refute. It might be construed as an attempt to destroy Game's reputation for providing safe shopping online to its many customers across the country.

Game itself has been in murky water of late, largely due to a significant contraction in sales made from its bricks and mortar outlets.

Executives have been put under pressure as share prices have dropped and the future of the group, which also owns GameStation, begins to look a little bleak.

This week the figures for the highest selling games of 2011 were published and the chart is actually divided into two categories, dealing with physical disc sales and digital downloads. There were some major discrepancies between the two tables, with Modern Warfare 3 taking the physical top spot, but slipping to eighth position in the digital stakes.