HDTV/3D TV News
The worst fears have been confirmed about the hacking attack on PSN, which has seen the service downed for the last week.
Like everyone else, we guessed this had to be a serious incident to keep the network offline for such a long time while rebuilding the security around it.
And this morning it has emerged that the near 80 million users of PSN have indeed had their personal details compromised by the hacker.
Sony posted on the PS blog: “We believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that [PSN users] provided: name, address (city, state/province, zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity passwords 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.”
Sony then drops the biggest bombshell: “While there is no evidence that credit card data was taken at this time, we cannot rule out the possibility.”
Which doesn’t sound too promising, particularly when the blog post proceeds to advise those who have provided card details to PSN or Qriocity to assume that these details have been stolen to “be on the safe side”.
Sony further advises people to “remain vigilant to review your account statements and to monitor your credit or similar types of reports.”
This certainly sounds bad, and the fact that it has taken Sony almost a week to come clean with this information hasn’t sat well with many PS3 owners.
A flood of negative comments have ensued on the blog page, some stronger than others. “This is totally unacceptable”, and “Oh dear, think I will stick to using PSN cards in the future” are a couple of the milder ones.
Sony has put another post up on the blog defending the delay between the incident first occurring and letting people know about the extent of the data breach.
Sony states it learned there was an intrusion on April 19th and then shut services down, bringing in “outside experts” to conduct an investigation to determine the exact nature of the hack.
Apparently it took until yesterday for said experts to understand the scope of the breach, whereupon Sony announced the details. That seems an unlikely state of affairs, to say the least – a more pre-emptive warning than this was surely possible, given the seriousness of the attack.
Meanwhile, PSN is still down with no announcement on the ETA of it coming back online. Although some PS3 owners aren’t worrying about that now, such as this poster on the blog: “You have got to be kidding me? 7 days to give us this info!!!! This sorta breach gives me no choice but to sell my PS3, seriously, how safe can PSN now be with this sorta info floating about on the net.”
This changes things for me BIG TIME!
For the past few days I have found myself a little annoyed about the PSN being down, however being a rational type of person I wasnt too concerned.
I figured, “what the hell, I can play offline and it will be back soon”
Now I find that I’ll have to change all my login details for my bank, PSN and e-mail… constantly checking my statements for fraud… not only that but I store all my families photos, videos and wot not on the bloody thing!
This breach is totally unacceptable… but even so… I can almost get over this… almost!
You see, what’s really grinding my gears is that the thieving bastard who hacked PSN has had 7 days to to rape our accounts!
We the lowly consumer have been left with our proverbial dick’s swinging in the wind by SONY’s underhanded secrecy.
Infact I have seen more openess from the people at the Fukushima Nuke plant than from the people at SONY, which is saying something!
I understand that things like this can happen, (just look at the hack on the US Government) but my understanding and rational nature has a limit… that limit is SONY’s lack of forthrightness over the theft of our details.
Sony claim to have “only just discovered the theft”…. yeah right…. and Bill Clinton “Never had sexuall relations with that woman”
I smell BS!
Of course If I do decide to jump ship and part- EX my PS3 I can expect to get peanuts for it due to the fact that everyman and his mother is doing the same!
this is so bloody annoying that someone can disrupt 77 million people, they need to catch who ever did this and cut their balls off. its beyond me how a security breach like this can happen in the first place to such a big company like sony, time to pull your finger out sony and get it sorted, but I dont hold my breath, and like matty said if we all wanted to sell or px our machines we would get peanuts for them now, who is going to buy a console you cant use online. NO-ONE THATS WHO.
Anyone know a good lawyer(s)? I think we should get a class action going…that will change PSN’s attitude!
Of course people always want something.
Your info will be fine just update a few passwords and monitor your CC. CC are insured so relax.
The people who did this better watch out because if caught they will be heading to prison for a while.
PSN please come back soon…
if you all sit there and think about it… is norton the most secure thing for your computer network? or is your router password effictive enough.. yes im a little ticked about them taking so long to get back to everyone on what was going on but maybe they just wanted to make sure before they blew everyones brains… and now i see why.. you all are getting up in arms about a hack that psn had no control over. its not their fault and im sure they are going to fix it.. i love my ps3 and always will.. for you guys i would start looking into your secerity of your own computer.. with putting in your ssn and all the other info that you also put on psn. because hacks happen..