Sony: PSN is Down, Personal Information Compromised

Tuesday 26th April 2011, 10:27:00 PM, written by Alex G

In a rather shocking update, Sony has confirmed that PSN is down and that personal information registered with their online service has been compromised. This does include credit card information!

They have posted an update on their blog with more details and courses of actions they are taking as well as recommendations for affected users.

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. 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. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

Full details at the link.

Discuss on the forums

Tagging

± PSN, PlayStation, Sony,


Latest Thread Comments (1399 total)
Posted by Shifty Geezer on Wednesday, 23-Nov-11 13:29:25 UTC
I just got an early Christmas present replacement slim PS3 (:D). Its installed FW was 3.66. Where does that place it in the hackability stakes?

Posted by Dungeonscaper on Wednesday, 23-Nov-11 14:36:19 UTC
Quoting Shifty Geezer
I just got an early Christmas present replacement slim PS3 (:D). Its installed FW was 3.66. Where does that place it in the hackability stakes?
Upgrade to 3.73, in 2 weeks KaKaRoTo will begin finishing a 'jailbreak' for 3.73 to install pkg files and if the other parts of the jailbreak follow suite (Run homebrew, peek & poke support) full CFW for 3.73 should be available in a month or so. Publicly you can only jailbreak 3.56 and below.

Posted by upnorthsox on Wednesday, 23-Nov-11 14:56:32 UTC
Quoting Dungeonscaper
Upgrade to 3.73, in 2 weeks KaKaRoTo will begin finishing a 'jailbreak' for 3.73 to install pkg files and if the other parts of the jailbreak follow suite (Run homebrew, peek & poke support) full CFW for 3.73 should be available in a month or so. Publicly you can only jailbreak 3.56 and below.
Not quite:

http://kakaroto.homelinux.net/

That doesn't include counter measures by Sony either.

Posted by Shifty Geezer on Wednesday, 23-Nov-11 15:03:14 UTC
Quoting Dungeonscaper
Upgrade to 3.73, in 2 weeks KaKaRoTo will begin finishing a 'jailbreak' for 3.73 to install pkg files and if the other parts of the jailbreak follow suite (Run homebrew, peek & poke support) full CFW for 3.73 should be available in a month or so. Publicly you can only jailbreak 3.56 and below.
I upgraded anyway. I've no interested in jailbreaking. I just didn't know what the highest cracked level so far is, which you inform me is 3.56. So these consoles are releasing in secure form as I'd expect, but it was worth checking. ;)

Posted by Arwin on Wednesday, 23-Nov-11 15:08:47 UTC
Quoting Shifty Geezer
I just got an early Christmas present replacement slim PS3 (:D). Its installed FW was 3.66. Where does that place it in the hackability stakes?
Congrats! May this one last you many years :) Is this a proper new one now?

Posted by manux on Wednesday, 23-Nov-11 15:35:37 UTC
Quoting Dungeonscaper
Upgrade to 3.73, in 2 weeks KaKaRoTo will begin finishing a 'jailbreak' for 3.73 to install pkg files and if the other parts of the jailbreak follow suite (Run homebrew, peek & poke support) full CFW for 3.73 should be available in a month or so. Publicly you can only jailbreak 3.56 and below.

You are quite optimistic when kakaroto himself says
Quote
I’ve seen people say (and even write it in their front page news) that I’ll release it in two weeks after I come back from vacation. That is not true and I never said that.
http://kakaroto.homelinux.net/

But anyway :)

Posted by patsu on Wednesday, 23-Nov-11 18:16:55 UTC
Another high profile wave foiled...

Cyber criminals attempt to hack into AT&T, no accounts compromised
http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/21/att-hack/

Quote
AT&T was the target of an attack today when cyber criminals attempted to access customer information by connecting phone numbers to online accounts.

“We do not know the intent, but we are concerned they may attempt to deceive our customers by sending them unsolicited texts or emails claiming to be from AT&T and requesting sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers or passwords,” an AT&T spokesperson said in an e-mail to VentureBeat regarding the company’s concerns about affected one percent.

The company explained the attack was “an organized attempt to obtain information,” meaning a number of people working together as opposed to a lone hacker. No accounts were successfully breached, however. Those trying to gain access to customer accounts were using “auto script technology,” according to a company statement, which attempted to link AT&T phone numbers to online accounts.

...

Posted by patsu on Tuesday, 06-Mar-12 18:55:05 UTC
In case people are curious like me...EXCLUSIVE: Infamous international hacking group LulzSec brought down by own leaderhttp://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/03/06/hacking-group-lulzsec-swept-up-by-law-enforcement/Sabu gave his team away. He was arrested secretly June last year.
Quote
Law enforcement agents on two continents swooped in on top members of the infamous computer hacking group LulzSec early this morning, and acting largely on evidence gathered by the organization’s brazen leader -- who sources say has been secretly working for the government for months -- arrested three and charged two more with conspiracy.Charges against four of the five were based on a conspiracy case filed in New York federal court, FoxNews.com has learned. An indictment charging the suspects, who include two men from Great Britain, two from Ireland and an American in Chicago, is expected to be unsealed Tuesday morning in the Southern District of New York....

Posted by Prophecy2k on Wednesday, 07-Mar-12 10:28:50 UTC
Quoting patsu
In case people are curious like me...

EXCLUSIVE: Infamous international hacking group LulzSec brought down by own leader
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/03/06/hacking-group-lulzsec-swept-up-by-law-enforcement/

Sabu gave his team away. He was arrested secretly June last year.
They got their comuppance imho... I have no sympathy for miscreant hackers.

Posted by patsu on Wednesday, 14-Mar-12 18:59:24 UTC
Sony's latest plan to prevent hacking, theft, and fraud
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/165665/Sonys_latest_plan_to_prevent_hacking_theft_and_fraud.php

Quote
Speaking to the security-focused SC Magazine, Sony's head of security for SEN Brett Wahlin explained that the company hopes to leverage some sociological principles to detect, prevent, and eliminate threats to its recently rebranded Sony Entertainment Network.

"The types of attacks we see are by groups with social agendas. The methods they use aren’t the same as the state-sponsored guys," he said. "At Sony, we are modifying our programs to deal less with state-sponsored [attacks] and more with socially-motivated hackers."

To do so, Sony will also be keeping a closer eye on its staff members around the world. Sony's employees are spread across numerous countries and divisions, and each has varying levels of access to the company's key systems. Sony's security team needs to watch over all of them to make sure they don't become the target of a future breach.

...
Original Source: http://www.scmagazine.com.au/Feature/293365,exclusive-how-sony-is-fighting-back.aspx


Add your comment in the forums

Related News

RWT explores Haswell's eDRAM for graphics
ATI shoots a Bolt through its GPU compute stack
AMD releases CodeXL 1.0
Travelling in Style: Beyond3D's C++ AMP contest
Analysis of Ivy Bridge Graphics Architecture at RWT
RWT analyzes Kepler's architecture
Nvidia 680 GTX (Kepler) Released
Microsoft Releases C++ AMP Open Specification
Nvidia's 2x Guaranteed Program
It's Dead Jim - a debate about the future of the graphics API