Warning: Nintendo Switch Accounts Are Getting Hacked, How To Check Yours

(Photo Illustration by Guillaume Payen/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

LightRocket via Getty Images

After a Eurogamer report detailing that a wave of Nintendo accounts had been breached, including a member of their own staff, Nintendo has chimed in about the current issue:

"We are aware of reports of unauthorized access to some Nintendo Accounts and we are investigating the situation."

The problem is if people are getting into your Switch/general Nintendo account is that they can use your saved payment information to buy in-game items. There are reports of people buying, say $100 V-Buck bundles for Fortnite, among other things. And a lot of people didn't even know their account had been accessed until they heard about this news, which could include you, and you should check to see if anyone has gotten into your Switch.

How to do that?

You can go to the Nintendo sign-in page here and log in.

After that, you want to head into Sign in and Security Settings.

Once you're there, you can see a list of places your account has been accessed. It might be your PC, if you just logged in from there, and it should hopefully be your Switch wherever your live. If you see some random, unfamiliar country you haven't been to, that's a problem, and you should change your password.

Account settings

Nintendo

You should also enable two-factor authentication, which should avoid a problem like this in the future. There are instructions on the same Security page, but it will involve downloading the Google Authenticator app on your phone. You should do this with all your important accounts, not just your Nintendo one, and I am sorry to say I didn't have it enabled here until I wrote this story. But now is definitely the time to do it, given the recent security breach.

If it's already too late and someone has gotten into your account and actually locked you out of it, there is a process to reclaim and recover your account here. I'm not sure how long that takes, but at least the system is in place to get it back.

Nintendo and online capabilities have not exactly ever been the best of friends, and no one likes an account breach, so just make sure you're doing everything possible to prevent yourself from this latest one. There's no word on how you might be vulnerable, but just make sure you haven't been breached by manually checking your account, and then protect yourself by turning on two-factor.

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