Another gaming website has been breached.  Sega reported that the hack exposed “names, birth dates, e-mail addresses and encrypted passwords” of some 1.3 million users. However, unlike Sony, users of the “Sega Pass” network have encrypted passwords. Though this is not a guarantee that the passwords are bullet proof, they are harder to bypass compared to those password stored in “plaintext” by Sony.

Lulzsec, the hacker group behind some of the biggest breaches lately –prominently tweeted: “@Sega – contact us. We want to help you destroy the hackers that attacked you. We love the Dreamcast, these people are going down.” Sincere or not, this should be interesting.

Passwords remain the weakest point in cyber security. “Security experts recommend taking a multilayered approach to security. Instead of relying on a single point of failure, organizations should be implementing several mechanisms to make it harder for cyber-attackers to steal sensitive, confidential data,” said Mike Yaffe, government security strategist at Core Security.

“Considering how easy it has become to steal passwords, using phishing emails or by installing keyloggers on a target computer, relying solely on passwords to protect data is very risky,” Yaffe added.

Tighter security involves forcing users to change their passwords regularly or arduously checking these passwords to ensure that they are not dictionary words. Most organizations think these measures will greatly affect user experience and cause users to transfer elsewhere because of the hassle, but “some tolerance for inconvenience is necessary, since it will result in a “significant boost” in security,” Yaffe said. He’d rather be “overprotected, than underprotected.”

“Security nirvana” is not possible, but that doesn’t mean networks cannot make an environment harder to breach with multiple gatekeepers. With these multiple layers of security, there’s a fat chance to notice something fishy and there’d be enough time to notify the IT department about these suspicious activities.

[Editor’s Note: If you’d like to chat about LulzSec and their current Internet celebrity, please join us at http://joint.im/r/khPZl9sn4jF]