Earlier this month, gaming company Ubisoft urged its nearly 58 million users to change their passwords following a data security breach that compromised usernames, email addresses and passwords. Shortly thereafter, Club Nintendo Japan announced that its systems had been hacked, resulting in 23,000 unauthorized logins. Nintendo also disabled all passwords for its rewards club members in Japan and requested that users reset their password through a link sent to their inbox.

Since then, two more gaming companies have announced intrusions by hackers. PC Gamer reported that Bohemia Interactive experienced a breach that led to the illegal downloading of usernames, email addresses and passwords, while Digital Spy stated that Konami experienced 35,000 unauthorized logins from almost four million attempts. The Konami breach also allowed hackers to access telephone numbers, email addresses, names, street addresses and dates of birth. 

Both game developers encouraged users to update their passwords and claimed to have tightened security following the breaches. 

The recent rash of password security breaches across numerous gaming platforms underscores the importance of using a random password generator to create lengthy, tough-to-crack sequences and a password manager to keep those codes organized. While some may write off breaches that occur within gaming companies, it’s important to remember that many of these accounts are tied to financial information like credit card numbers. In the case of the Konami breach, hackers obtained a variety of personal information from users, including birthdays and home addresses. In the wrong hands, information like that could easily be used to steal someone’s identity. Recommended reading: 10 simple data security settings that go unused.

These numerous hacking incidents across a variety of video gaming platforms should serve to remind users that it’s important to protect personal information online. While a complicated password is a great anti-identity theft tool, over-sharing online – whether it’s in a video game or on a social media site – can lead to unintended consequences in the future.