Friday, April 29, 2011

PSN Down - Possible Hacker Attack - Somewhat Brainfart

Hey all,

In what will probably be considered a 'dark day for PlayStation 3 owners', Sony went on record stating that the reason PlayStation Network was down is because of a hacker or hackers. ( Probably not their exact phrasing, but you get the drift. )

Around the period of the 17 and 19 of April, Sony noticed a security breach and decided to shutdown PSN hence depriving hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, to access online content and online games. But what sucks is that, even while knowing this, they only decided to announce it to the users, in the 26th, that it was a security breach. The type of information that the hackers could have access to are the following: name, address, country, email, birthday and PSN/Qriocity password and login and PSN online ID.

They could also have your profile data, including your purchase history and billing address, and your PSN/Qriocity security answers. So as it stands, they have the basic package for Identity theft for an undetermined number of people. Gravy!!! But hark, what is this? Apparently hackers may also have users credit card data if they just so happened to use them online. I say 'may have', because Sony has stated that it is uncertain if hackers indeed have this info, however they do not rule out the possibility. Through their blog and also an email they will send the users, they have advised people to check their credit card statements and given them information on how to do so.

All in all, my beef is not so much with the fact that PSN got hacked. I mean give enough time to hackers and they will prove to you that the impossible is in fact quite possible. I in no way condone what they do. But the fact of the matter is, if you want the best security, you hire a hacker and not only that, you constantly have to upgrade your stuff so as not to get hacked. My beef is with Sony not warning anyone that their was an intrusion on the 19.

I say this in all reserve because I don't own a PS3 and I'm not on PSN. But if this were to happen to the Xbox 360 online community, I would hope that Microsoft would warn all of their users through email that their was a security breach despite our information being compromised or not. Call it a heads up if you will. Cause at that point I could start changing my passwords on my emails and whatever else I would have the same password for.

No, what Sony decided to do was to shut down PSN and call a security firm to fix the problem. Then when they saw that there was a possible information leak, they informed the people. That's real great. So I guess if people get charged by every possible porn website in the last couple of days, then they'll know that hackers got their credit card numbers.

Until then, this is me signing off.

No comments:

Post a Comment