Sony Hacked

[SpiritedTreasure]

I don't see any topics about this so I'm posting it.

Please move it if I have placed it in the wrong area..

Apparently Sony has been hacked.

=====Copied and pasted from TesAdventures ======

Credit ariantes for the post

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Sony's Playstation Network hacked + SOE hacked                                                                                                                                                
« on: April 27, 2011, 06:00:56 AM »
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
Last week Sony had to take down it's  Playstation Network service due to a hacking attack. Now it seems the  damage is much larger: user information, login/PW information and credit  card information of over 75 Million users might have been stolen.

This  might lead to another hacking series on MMO accounts and a lot of  damage to Sony both image wise and financial. I would advise anyone who  have a Playstation Network account to change any login information of  any MMO they are playing if those login infos are the same or similar

They really annoying thing about the whole story is that it took Sony one week to release the information about the data leak.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/04/ ... -qriocity/

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming ... index.html
http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2 ... dit-cards/
http://tvnz.co.nz/technology-news/sony- ... ch-4143213


Edit: 05/03/11
http://www.soe.com/securityupdate/

[Leonardo]

I don't see any topics about this so I'm posting it.

Please move it if I have placed it in the wrong area..

Apparently Sony has been hacked.

=====Copied and pasted from TesAdventures ======

Credit ariantes for the post

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Sony's Playstation Network hacked + SOE hacked                                                                                                                                                
« on: April 27, 2011, 06:00:56 AM »
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
Last week Sony had to take down it's  Playstation Network service due to a hacking attack. Now it seems the  damage is much larger: user information, login/PW information and credit  card information of over 75 Million users might have been stolen.

This  might lead to another hacking series on MMO accounts and a lot of  damage to Sony both image wise and financial. I would advise anyone who  have a Playstation Network account to change any login information of  any MMO they are playing if those login infos are the same or similar

They really annoying thing about the whole story is that it took Sony one week to release the information about the data leak.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/04/ ... -qriocity/

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming ... index.html
http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2 ... dit-cards/
http://tvnz.co.nz/technology-news/sony- ... ch-4143213


Edit: 05/03/11
http://www.soe.com/securityupdate/

You did the right thing to post it here, because you and me cannot post this kinda of news in the News, Announcements, and Site Polls section. I post the Happy Easter thread here, but that was moved to the right subforum by silver_fox which means that any staff member here except those in the Approbatio group can do that.  

About the bad news of some hackers who could get access to Sony's database is a disgrace if you ask me and yes I know about it. Thanks for posting it SpiritedTreasure.  

[ManaUser]

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving company, as far as I'm concerned.

[Jac Making my way back]

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving company, as far as I'm concerned.

The company may have deserved it, but its consumers didn't. I'm glad that I don't have any financial information stored with them. I hope that Bioware/EA isn't a target as well.

[SpiritedTreasure]

This is really creepy and I wish those wankers would just fall off the earth! 75 million? OMFG!

It goes beyond my comprehension.. What kind of person would hurt that  many people? And why?

[Jac Making my way back]

Greed. For some people it's easier to steal from others than earn one's way in the world.

[Elaura]

What kind of person would hurt that  many people?

Mao Tse Dong springs to mind, but that's another thread altogether.


I find the timing of an attack on a Japanese owned company rather distasteful as well.  That country is (albeit temporarily) crippled financially right now by the earthquakes and tsunami damage and recovery.

On the other hand, Korea has picked up a great deal of Japan's lost business.  I wonder if Samsung might now make a bid for the Sony gaming market as well?


As for the victims, they have one thing going for them.  Sheer volume.  It takes a while to do anything with the sheer amount of data which may have been compromised.  It is very likely usernames, passwords, pin numbers, and credit cards will be changed, reissued, and/or secured long before the hackers have the chance to use even a tiny fraction of the info they've stolen.  I can't imagine the amount of storage space required to even keep that amount of data.

I feel sorry for anyone who will suffer the kind of knee jerk anxiety the phrase "personal information may have been compromised" causes, but in the end I will allow myself to be more concerned with the actions taken to catch and punish those responsible.  It's time people stopped thinking of hacking as "cool".

[Chazz of Blades]

Look at it this way, with that much possbile info, even stealing just a quarter from each person racks up a nice haul.

[Elaura]

If it took five minutes to steal one quarter from each person, it would take over 713 years for one person working without pause.  By the time a batch program in written, 75 million people could have already changed their info.

[Wolf undefined]

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving company, as far as I'm concerned.

The company may have deserved it, but its consumers didn't. I'm glad that I don't have any financial information stored with them. I hope that Bioware/EA isn't a target as well.

I agree completely with Jac.  All PS3 users, myself included, could not access it for a week.  Many consumers had to check their credit card activity daily or request a new Credit Card.        
 
More info about the suspected hacker:  He or his friend has been charged legally by Sony for breaking into Sony.  At this point he didn't really do anything bad, but after he was threatened to be charged, he posted the 'script' used for hacking online.  Hundreds of hackers then proceeded to use that script to break into Sony at the same time.  While Sony employees and machines can stop one or two at once, they can not stop hundreds in less than a minute.  They must rebuild their entire system.   
 
However, PS3 is supposed to come back online tomarrow.

I don't believe any credit cards were actually stolen though, just that the guy who broke into it has seen the information.

[Maiqdabomb undefined]

For Sony to let that happen is pathetic. They need to stay out of the software market and stick with making TVs.

[Wolf undefined]

For Sony to let that happen is pathetic. They need to stay out of the software market and stick with making TVs.

Maiq, this would have happened to the Xbox easier if the hacker wanted to.  The Xbox is more pc-based, so it would have been much easier.  Its not that they let one person threw, its that they let one person threw who allowed hundreds to get threw at once, and one of them hit the delete key.

[Maiqdabomb undefined]

For Sony to let that happen is pathetic. They need to stay out of the software market and stick with making TVs.

Maiq, this would have happened to the Xbox easier if the hacker wanted to.  The Xbox is more pc-based, so it would have been much easier.  Its not that they let one person threw, its that they let one person threw who allowed hundreds to get threw at once, and one of them hit the delete key.

I never said that it couldn't happen the Xbox. But Microsoft would probably be a little faster with the damage control and rebuilding efforts.

[Wolf undefined]

For Sony to let that happen is pathetic. They need to stay out of the software market and stick with making TVs.

Maiq, this would have happened to the Xbox easier if the hacker wanted to.  The Xbox is more pc-based, so it would have been much easier.  Its not that they let one person threw, its that they let one person threw who allowed hundreds to get threw at once, and one of them hit the delete key.

I never said that it couldn't happen the Xbox. But Microsoft would probably be a little faster with the damage control and rebuilding efforts.

As far as im concerned the longer it takes, the better; the less chance of it happening again

[Maiqdabomb undefined]

True, but Sony has severely neglected the PSN, at the very least. Then again, what should you expect if its free?

[peachykeen]

Rumors floating around say there were quite a few security holes in the PSN, so it wasn't really any one thing. Sony's stance has been drawing them some fire for a while, and the PS3 in particular has been the focus of a number of hack attempts and firmware hacks and such for months now (since they cracked down); this wasn't really a surprise.

If the reports on the security are correct, and even just considering other things (PPC architecture, security built into .Net, etc), the XBox is somewhat less a target. Certainly not unhackable, but Microsoft hasn't done any of the harsh crackdowns and certainly hasn't taken a habit of suing everyone who tinkers, so they've been less of a target.

What will be interesting is the fallout for Sony. The PS3 was finally gaining a solid footing when this hit, and now they've lost anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 credit card numbers (rumors vary between their DB being access or fully dumped). Certainly not a good PR situation, and the lawsuits are just starting. If Microsoft and Nintendo manage to announce or release next-gen consoles any time soon, Sony will be well and truly screwed (we can only hope).

[Deathstalker13 OK]

What I find strange about this is that at the beginning of the year, the Japanese Yen was worth about 1 cent, but now, it's only 80yen to $1. That means that the value of their currency has INCREASED BY NEARLY 20%. So I wouldn't exactly call that a crippled economy. However, as far as Sony goes, I am quite sad at all the contempt that the gaming community has for the poor company. I mean seriously, a major global corporation has just been hacked, and these people are actually MOCKING them? To me, That's just disgraceful. I know I wouldn't be doing the same if that happened to Microsoft or Apple.

[Maiqdabomb undefined]

What I find strange about this is that at the beginning of the year, the Japanese Yen was worth about 1 cent, but now, it's only 80yen to $1. That means that the value of their currency has INCREASED BY NEARLY 20%. So I wouldn't exactly call that a crippled economy. However, as far as Sony goes, I am quite sad at all the contempt that the gaming community has for the poor company. I mean seriously, a major global corporation has just been hacked, and these people are actually MOCKING them? To me, That's just disgraceful. I know I wouldn't be doing the same if that happened to Microsoft or Apple.

Sony seemed to be asking for it though. They severely underestimated the power of hackers, and they neglect their systems. Of course, I am a complete Microsoft loyalist, so my word is only 60% dependable.

[Elaura]

What I find strange about this is that at the beginning of the year, the Japanese Yen was worth about 1 cent, but now, it's only 80yen to $1. That means that the value of their currency has INCREASED BY NEARLY 20%. So I wouldn't exactly call that a crippled economy.

I wonder if that's a comment on Japan's economy or the economy of the United States?  There was an immediate dip and then a spike in the value of JPY against the Chinese Yuan in March, but it has fallen right back down to pre-earthquake levels and now Japan has much less in reserves to bolster their economy in the face of further damage.  Perhaps they weren't "crippled", but I still think the timing stinks.

I think the backlash from these attacks and the subsequent lawsuits will hurt the average player a lot more than it will hurt Sony, though.  It's the paying customers who lose access to their games, it's the consumer who will have to pay more to all gaming companies simply to cover the higher cost of security.  It's a shame people who attack big corporations with the idea that some rich corporate suit might have a bad day don't realize the overall effect on the entire market.  After all, DRM is the direct result of the corporations over-reaction to piracy.  I hate to think of what they'll come up with to combat this sort of thing.  It's certain it won't be good for us little guys.

[Dragon_Lance ...on a reconnaissance mission]

Realistically, unless a PS3 user has an immense bank account worthy of attention, I wouldn't even be to worried about it. Also, what one submits is at one's own risk. One should know this.

[peachykeen]

However, as far as Sony goes, I am quite sad at all the contempt that the gaming community has for the poor company. I mean seriously, a major global corporation has just been hacked, and these people are actually MOCKING them? To me, That's just disgraceful. I know I wouldn't be doing the same if that happened to Microsoft or Apple.

It's their job, one they're often paid huge sums for, to keep that safe. There's obviously some inherent risk of giving the info to a company, but they're expected (with good reason) to do what they can to protect that, and if things go south for reasons beyond their control, be honest. They did neither.

The fact they failed so miserably, repeatedly, and hadn't the foggiest what was going on (and/or kept it under wraps for a while) is just as bad as the fact they brought this on themselves in the first place, by suing everyone who so much as looked cross-eyed at their precious consoles. Which was a side-effect of them trying so hard to lock it down, which was a side effect of them struggling to sell them, which was a side effect of them being overpriced and overly complicated...

It's just a chain of messes they started and now they've reaped the consequences of. Going around pissing off your fans is no way to do business, as they've found out.

Plus, the whole deal of them being horribly irresponsible, poor security, covering it up, and the fact they weren't well liked to begin with... They've been breeding ill regard for some time now, this is nowhere near an out-of-the-blue attack on an innocent, well-meaning company.

[Elaura]

No, but it is an attack on consumers.

[Chazz of Blades]

It's their job, one they're often paid huge sums for, to keep that safe. There's obviously some inherent risk of giving the info to a company, but they're expected (with good reason) to do what they can to protect that, and if things go south for reasons beyond their control, be honest. They did neither.

The fact they failed so miserably, repeatedly, and hadn't the foggiest what was going on (and/or kept it under wraps for a while) is just as bad as the fact they brought this on themselves in the first place, by suing everyone who so much as looked cross-eyed at their precious consoles. Which was a side-effect of them trying so hard to lock it down, which was a side effect of them struggling to sell them, which was a side effect of them being overpriced and overly complicated...

Thats like taking your car to a mechanic, and coming back to find out he charged you to dump kitty liter and maple syrup in the radiators.

[Chazz of Blades]

Test Post, soon to be deleted(hopefully)

[peachykeen]

No, but it is an attack on consumers.

This is true, and it certainly wasn't morally right or a good thing by any means. My post was mostly focusing on the Sony side of it, not the actual innocent victims. There aren't a lot of ways to attack a company besides cutting off their consumers, which (while still not justifying it) does explain the unfortunate occurrence.

[font=Lucida Grande, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Thats like taking your car to a mechanic, and coming back to find out he charged you to dump kitty liter and maple syrup in the radiators.

[/font]
[font=Lucida Grande, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Um, I think I'm missing your analogy.[/font]