Handset giant concedes the game-card code on its mobile phone/game deck has been "bypassed."

Responding to a Tuesday report, Nokia officially admitted that hackers had bypassed the N-Gage's game-card encryption. "Nokia has investigated rumors that the copy protection of Nokia N-Gage game cards has been 'cracked'," company spokesman Steven Knuff told GameSpot. He continuted, "We have found that some of the copy protection mechanisms of some game titles have been disabled and the games made available for download on various Web sites."

Knuff said Nokia had initiated an "aggressive program to stop the individuals and/or entities that are behind these intellectual property violations." While he did not give specifics, he did say the company would be enlisting the help of internet service providers and law enforcement agencies and that Nokia would beef up its copyright protection program.