** PSN shut indefinently; hackers may have your credit card details **

[Alpha]

Sony has shut down its PlayStation Network indefinitely after fears hackers that crashed the system have accessed credit card details.

More than 70 million registered users play online games, shop and stream movies on the network that crashed last Wednesday.

Sony confirmed an "external intrusion" had jeopardised the network which now had to be completely rebuilt to secure user's details.

"This is a time intensive process and we're working to get them back online quickly," Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold said in a blog post.

He said Sony did not yet know if users' credit card information or other personal information had been compromised.

"Unfortunately, I don't have an update or timeframe to share at this point in time," he said.

It's believed hackers targeted Sony after it sued US man George Hotz for cracking the PlayStation hardware system, allowing users to play pirated games and home-made applications.

Sony settled out-of-court with Hotz last month on the condition he never attempt to crack Sony systems again.

Hacker group "Anonymous" have denied involvement in the breach in a blog post titled "For Once We Didn't Do it" however it admitted rogue hackers could be responsible.

Source: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/t...-1226045121432

Internet gamers were frustrated last week when Sony shut down its PlayStation Network. Now, they might have reason to be worried.

On Monday, the Japanese electronics giant said it is keeping its PlayStation Network videogame service offline indefinitely following a hacking attack it now says may have compromised user’s information.

To ensure the network’s integrity, Sony said it is currently rebuilding the service, which connects more than 75 million PlayStation customers over the Internet, letting them play videogames and chat together. “This is a time intensive process and we’re working to get them back online quickly,” Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold said in a blog post.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/25/22402/

So, basically, some hackers, who may or may not be associated with Anonymous, compromised the PSN last week. Sony's been trying to get to the bottom of it, but can't. Is now screwed.

Thoughts?

[Rocky]

Xbl: 1, psn: 0

[Dan558]

That sucks so much. Up until a month ago it was my brothers credit card assigned to my account because he bought PSN games for me for my birthday but I decided to get one more thing and after an annoying process I changed it to my card.

Xbl: 1, psn: 0

Oh I think because of the general player base, the availability of good games and it's free, its still more like:

PSN: 999 XBL: 1


To bad to hear about playatation sueing that guy trying to fight over-inflated game prices by hacking the PS3.

[Zargabaath]

Well I don't use PSN that much so no biggie to me until I want to download Suikoden. But if this "outage" was indeed caused by hackers associated with anonymous then it will be more reason to find "anonymous" even more moronic and irritating. Before this event I was already fed up with anonymous' "battle" with Sony. A group of people who get their panties in a bunch.

[Unknown Entity]

I'm a patient person. When I heard PSN was going to be down for a couple of days, I was a little irked, but realised it wasn't anything to get irked over. Now it's pretty much a whole week since it went down, and after more recent news, I'm pretty ****ed off with Sony.

They've not been very good at keeping us updated in the last week. Updates were few and far between, so most "news" came off of external sites, which honestly just want to cause a shitstorm over this whole matter. As well as the lack of updates, it's taken almost a whole ****ing week to tell us our data has been compromised.

Even though there's no "evidence" our credit card details has been stolen, I'm still worried a little bit. It was only about a month ago I finally used my card on PSN. I'm unsure if deleting the data you've input will delete the details of your credit card, but I know I deleted it. It'll probably still show on the billing information though. ><

Sony, I'm a loyal customer and fan. But you've royally ****ed 75+ million people over. Thanks for the headache.

Xbl: 1, psn: 0

Heavy Rain, inFamous, Uncharted, free service, bigger fan base. XBL: 1, PSN: 5.

[Tiffany]

I think its crap that it happened if I'm honest, and it could be my age talking but out of having a few games on a dedicated console vs having my freaking CREDIT CARD INFO out there for anyone to get? I'll take not having to worry about my personal info out there on the net any day.

I do think people need better things to do with their lives though. Just because you can hack the system doesn't mean you have to.

[Victoria]

What makes you think your information is safe on XBL? Because you have to pay for it? Hah. Right...

It's just as vulnerable to attack as Sony is. Sony just happened to piss more people off.

Me, though? I'm not worried about it. Wow, I'll be getting spam. Big deal.

And to set the record straight, yeah, there's no evidence that the CC info was taken. And I highly doubt it was as well. Cause if it was, my money in my account would be all gone more or less. But it's still all there.

[Tiffany]

Well, I hope for everyone who has their info on there that it isn't the case. Although with the amount of users that the network has, might take a little bit to get through all the CC info, no?

Either way, it isn't Xbox live's system that has been compromised, lol. Thankfully for the here and now it isn't something I need to be concerned with!

[Rowan]

Hacker group "Anonymous" have denied involvement in the breach in a blog post titled "For Once We Didn't Do it" however it admitted rogue hackers could be responsible.

There is no representative for anonymous. That statement is false. I wouldnt wait too long to hang onto your credit card details either. A program is probably being developed to take everyones details and money at one time, rather than risk doing as many as possible before people start cancelling their cards. As long as noones money is being stolen now, most people will be under the impression that noone has gained access to it. dont be fools, protect yourself. People who are able to hack into such organisations are not to be taken lightly, you're a fool to think you are safe. cancel your cards now.

[Rocky]

There is no representative for anonymous. That statement is false. I wouldnt wait too long to hang onto your credit card details either. A program is probably being developed to take everyones details and money at one time, rather than risk doing as many as possible before people start cancelling their cards. As long as noones money is being stolen now, most people will be under the impression that noone has gained access to it. dont be fools, protect yourself. People who are able to hack into such organisations are not to be taken lightly, you're a fool to think you are safe. cancel your cards now.

people's money have been stolen already. Some guy got charged $800 on his card to some guy in India.

[Dan558]

people's money have been stolen already. Some guy got charged $800 on his card to some guy in India.

official source? I'm not gonna cancel my credit card because it was one of several thousand that MAY be in someones hands. If they were gonna pull off some mass heist and start randomly gaining lots of money from this they would have to be like super spys or something to get away with it.

Maybe that $800 was an isolated incident for some other person dealing with PSN. With no source connecting it directly to this incident that seems like just Playstation smearing to me. Peoples credit card numbers have been stolen/misused in almost any venue if one looks hard enough and if the system has been used enough.

Basically I'm not gonna panic until i see an official source stating that someones money has been stolen as a direct result of this hacking. Otherwise I'll take my chances that they won't choose to use my credit card first for money theft.

[Rowan]

people's money have been stolen already. Some guy got charged $800 on his card to some guy in India.

source please?

Im sure there are other credit card scams going on, most particulary in india. I have heard many people being called from indians claiming to be from microsoft. Just because this person has a psn account, it does not mean that was the cause, although its a possibility.

[Alpha]

I've been meaning to shift banks anyway, so I'll just go ahead and do it. Works well.

Honestly, I'm more concerned about identity theft. The banks (well, the ones here...) will refund anything stolen, as it is clearly not out of stupidity that the information was stolen.

You should have all received this email:

Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer:

We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:

* Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;
* Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and
* Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by re-building our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.

We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable.

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/province, zip or postal code), 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 that credit card data was taken at this time, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, to be on the safe side we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security, tax identification or similar number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them, as well.

To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant to review your account statements and to monitor your credit or similar types of reports.

We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of this incident, and we regret any inconvenience. Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority. Please contact us at nz.playstation.com/psnoutage should you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,
Sony Network Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment Teams

Sony Network Entertainment Europe Limited (formerly known as PlayStation Network Europe Limited) is a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited the data controller for PlayStation Network/Qriocity personal data.

So, I'm changing credit cards, because I'm switching banks anyway, and will change my PSN password as soon as services are restored. The password I had used was the one I use for inconsequential things anyway, like this place.

[Rocky]

some guy posted a paypal statement of getting $799.99 withdrawn and successfully transfered from the account to an "Alam Akash". I don't have the history of where I found it saved, but believe it or not it happened. Other people have been getting back bad bank statements as well.

Worst thing is, Sony made no attempts to encrypt the credit card data at all. Now that hackers have peoples names/addresses/credit card #s, they can find out your SS# as well. Have fun with that!

[Victoria]

The last email I got from Sony/PSN was confirming my purchase of Dungeon Hunter on the 12th, and that was it. I never received that at all. Oh wait, that email is Europe only. (If the last bit is any indication.) So does that mean only Europe was affected by this hack?

Also last I checked, just because you have someone's name, addy, and CC, doesn't mean you can find their SSN. Where's the source that says Sony didn't encrypt anything, either?

[Alpha]

^^ Good question. I can't find anything to suggest that only the EU PSN has been compromised though.

[Victoria]

It has to be, because 75 million or so? ..If I recall, many more PS3s have been sold than that. So either the rest have been sold/traded back in, or... it's only in Europe.

Oh! I just found this little article here in MagicBox.

Sony said they are unsure if user credit card info on PlayStation Network were compromised. 1UP reported that the reason behind the PSN outage was because people use hacked version of PS3 firmware known as Rebug to disguise as Debug PS3 units, the fake debug console can use fake credit card info on the Developer's PSN network to obtain PSN content for free - which is a serious security breach.

*Is still looking for more related news on this.*

*Tip: CCs can't be used if the security code isn't known. (unless they somehow figure it out..)

Edit: Just found the 'proof' that the data wasn't encrypted. Way to go, Sony... ._.

As for the leak itself, Sony says that all personal data was not encrypted but was located "behind a very sophisticated security system" which apparently was unable to prevent the infiltration. Credit card data was encrypted and there is still no evidence that such data has been stolen. That's according to Sony, of course, and it goes against the numerous stories that have surfaced about sudden credit card fraud, including an incident with 1UP contributor Steve Watts. It's possible these occurrences are coincidental; it's difficult to say with any degree of certainty that they are a direct result of the PSN breach.

http://www.1up.com/news/where-sony-s...nt-involvement

[Dan558]

^so credit card data was encypted but other personal data wasn't?

Anyways it seems Rocky was just Sony hating, my guess is the only reason is he's a Xbox fanboy.

[Tiffany]

Add [email protected] to your address book

===================================

PlayStation(R)Network

===================================

Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer:

We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011,
certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account
information was compromised in connection with an illegal and
unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this
intrusion, we have:

1) Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;

2) Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a
full and complete investigation into what happened; and

3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our
network infrastructure by rebuilding our system to provide you
with greater protection of your personal information.

We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill
as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly
and efficiently as practicable.

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/province,
zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation
Network/Qriocity password, login, password security answers, and handle/PSN
online ID. It is also possible that your profile data may have been obtained,
including purchase history and billing address (city, state/province, zip
or postal code). 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 that credit card data was taken at this time,
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 that your credit card number (excluding security code) and
expiration date may also have been obtained.

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email,
telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive
information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email,
asking for your credit card number, social security, tax identification
or similar number or other personally identifiable information. If you
are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the
entity asking. When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are
fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your
password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity
user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we
strongly recommend that you change them as well.

To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss,
we encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements
and to monitor your credit or similar types of reports.

We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of
this incident, and we regret any inconvenience. Our teams are working
around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as
possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will
continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to
protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and
secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority.
Please contact us at 1-800-345-7669 should you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,

Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment

===================================

Email from Sony/PSN

[Unknown Entity]

Seriously though. In this day and age, it's most likely everyone's details aren't where they're supposed to be or as protected as we'd like. That handbag you bought off the TV five years ago? Yeah... you're credit card details are probably circulating somewhere as far out as Asia. No matter how careful you are, you're always going to be compromised.

Just because Sony got hacked, doesn't mean that guy's money was taken because of the hacker. It could be a coincidence, and with over 77+ PSN users, there's bound to be a few. Plus, people will use this opportunity to lie about money being stolen in the hopes they'll get a payout from Sony (which they very well might not).

I was reading an article on why we should remain calm, and it does make sense.

The PlayStation Breach: Why You Should Remain Calm - NYTimes.com

That's NOT to say I don't recommend sorting something out at the bank, and/or keeping a careful eye on your money. Because honestly, our details have been missing for over a week, and as far as I know, no one has claimed any losses, and Sony hasn't come out with a statement about losses. It'd be all over the news if people really were losing their money.

[Tiffany]

They won't be if you are careful. Granted, nothing is foolproof. I've only ever purchased things through PayPal, who doesn't give out your CC info to whomever you are buying from. Now if THEY got hacked holy hell, I'd be sweating bullets.

I'm hoping its not true, but Victoria posted about someone who has claimed theft.

[Furore]

Several people have reported having money withdrawn from their accounts including a few people I know who aren't the types to fall for scams. The timing would have to be one hell of a coincidence. The way I see it, there are that many members they mightn't even get up to any specific person, but not taking precautions is asking to be stolen from.

Onto that PS vs. 360 fanboy rabble: At least XBL works.
Since I'm too bloody lazy to set my 360 up again, I've been investing time in my single player consoles of the past. I'd forgotten how bloody fun some of my gamecube games are.

[Ol' Fartsy]

I hope this helps those in dire need of PSN news.