PlayStation Network users may have had their personal and financial details stolen.
Sony has revealed that the group responsible for the recent attack on the PlayStation Network, which has resulted in the
service being down for the last week, gained access to the personal details of PSN users - possibly including credit card and financial details.
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Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorised person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state/province, zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID,' reads Sony's official statement.
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It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained.'
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If you have authorised a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained.'
Sony has clarified that, while no evidence currently proves financial information may have been taken, they have not yet ruled out the possibility.
Sony has encouraged users to remain vigilant of their account details while it continues to investigate and repair the intrusion. Sony has confirmed that independent security firms have been brought in to help solve the issues.
Earlier this month hacking group Anonymous launched an attack on Sony's PSN as part of a protest against Sony's prosecution of hacker George 'Geohot' Hotz.
Anonymous then warned Sony it would launch an even bigger attack, though clarified it would not attack PSN again.
Let us know your thoughts in
the forums.
56 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyYou just feel like saying piss off. Inconvenience? No. They lost all our personal information. I mean it's Sony, one of the top electrical companies in the world.
Who's to say it wouldn't have happened just the same with a system like XBL or, God help us, Steam. History has shown many times that security systems aren't perfect (I'm sure MS wishes this were so, no more service packs or updates!), just a few months ago it was some network of websites that had its user account information hacked into.
Damn you Xbox!!!! ****ing moron.
I'm just waiting for someone to go say it was Microsoft or Nintendo who did it.
Why wasn't the possibility of this considered when Sony knew full well that Dev firmware was out there? Surely someone should have twigged that this could happen? Hackers will be hackers, if there's a will there's a way and all that, but you've got to design a system to be robust enough to protect personal information.
This outage certainly will not be good for Sony. It's just not good business for them to have been lazy on security, and you don't get a company to that size by using bad business.
if so, the main fail here is that sony shouldnt have had those "trusted" machines connected to the same network as the main psn
I still get a laugh out of everyone around the internet believing it was anon or geohot as if there are no other crackers out there. That and the attack is unlike anything that anon do.
Duh, did you not read my post earlier. It's obviously Xbox fanboys wanting to convert PS3 owners! There's no other reason!!!
And this pretty much zeroes any profit Sony made from PS3, because the payments they will have to pay to users will be enormous.
but it is unknown if any credit card details you may have used have been taken
and all the psn info you might use for other accounts
This concerns me the most.
All I got to say is that Sony had better get their **** together...
It doesn't help that the recent sony lawsuits (regardless of what side of the fence you sit on) have probably made them a target.
Thankfully I hadnt connected my credit card to my PSN account
Or perhaps part of a great PC revolution, breaking the shackles that are the restrictive consoles in a tremendous shower of glory! Hackers of the world UNITE!
Or perhaps I should just stop watching that film...
Does nobody learn, the last company you should be trusting is Sony, when have they ever made a decision that bodes well for their customers?
Wouldn't have been a long statement.
I'm in the same boat as you, but, don't really see the point in changing them, as, whoever has gotten these details is going to have to do some pretty in depth spying to try and find out which account on whatever site is mine, and then find out the username that's connected with my email.
Even if they do, they'll only get onto forums and non critical stuff, so not worth doing.
If they've gotten cc details, that's all they'll be interested in.
Anonymous did say though that they stopped the attacks due to affecting the users experience, I'm sure taking personal information is still affects the users experience.
I'm not saying that this necessarily reflects my own beliefs, but you could also take the viewpoint that it only affects the user experience if they do something with the details, yes passwords have to be changed as a security measure but if the info was only taken to sully Sony's name then it seems to have worked. It's Sony who've taken down the service not the hackers.
It was Microsoft or Nintendo who did it.
PS:
PSN Users Reporting Hundreds of Dollars Stolen From Them
What do we need to do, i.e cancel cards etc.
If your concerned about your data and financial info then my advice is to cancel your debit/credit card and have it replaced in addition to this change your passwords that will be linked to your email which was registered through Sony. If you live in the UK and wish to go a step further contact either Equifax or Experian and have a protective registration applied to your credit file to protect the possibility of identity theft.
As a customer of both the PS3 & Xbox 360 Iâd highlight that it can affect both companies now and in the future so if you own a 360, Wii or PC don't sit all high and might on your thrown smugness as it can easily happen to you as well itâs just a matter of time.
Final advice to all is honestly not to panic and go about your lives as its happened now and apart from what I highlighted above there's very little you can do about it.
Perhaps you should ;-)
These aren't some social vigilantes looking to free anyone, they are plain and simple criminals. Personally if they were caught I would hang them by the testicles (or other suitable gender specific body part[s]) and leave them to rot. Same goes for game pirates and virus writers.
If I were you I would change the password on any other account you have that uses your email address as a user-id (including your PSN account). Also if you had a credit/debit card registered through PSN I would watch the account like a hawk for the next few days/weeks/months.
If you check there Anonymous Newsite, they say themselves "For once it wasn't us" Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't who knows? Sounds suspicious to me...But like everyone said, it has to be Nintendo or Microsoft ;)
He he he
Pretty hard to change your mothers maiden name or place of birth (unless you make up something new but that introduces the risk you'd forget it).
Maybe not a huge concern, but could allow malicious people future access to peoples accounts even post a password change.
Sucks, we don't even own a PS3 - we use Qirocity via Blu-Ray player which shares the PSN network.
On topic, the PSN network has been down for a while now, hopefully they can get it back up and running soon.
My understanding is they were connected to a "trusted" network and it was that fact which allowed some piggy-backing to go on.
Edit: I don't actually think it's dead and not coming back, I was just pointing to funnies..
I don't like the idea of clouds either. I read an article about how they'd like everything to become cloud based so you have some barebones hardware and a tiny amount of storage and your OS/programs/games/files/etc will be streamed to you.
:D:D;)
Apprently a few dozen people are convinced they have been the victims of fraud. The quoted stories do smell of comment from the sorts of idiot and troll that lurke the boards over there.
full story + history for those who dont know the full story:
http://www.gigalb.com/category/gaming/