Unofficial Tex Murphy

As some of you may or may not be aware, the Playstation network went down on April 19th (the online component of the PS3 console, which enables online gaming, communications, gaming and software purchases), and they have been unable to bring it back online yet. Initial speculation lead many people to believe an individual or group of hackers had compromised the service, and after 6 days of silence, Sony has finally issued and official statement/update:

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

And the BBC also reports: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13192359

So basically, if you are one of the 70+ million people who are part of the PSN (Playstation Network) then the following information of your may have been stolen:

Name
Address (city, state/province, zip or postal code)
Country
E-mail address
Date of birth
PlayStation Network/Qriocity passwords and login
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.

Also, if you have used a credit card at all to make any purchases on your account (for games, movie rentals, subscriptions, etc.) your credit card details may have also been stolen, although this has not been confirmed as there is no evidence of this, but the possibility is not being ruled out.

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 also have been obtained.

Sony is recommending the following actions for all members of the Playstation Network:

Change any passwords for services you have that had a matching password to the one you used on the Playstation Network.
Keep a close eye on your credit card statements, and perhaps put an alert in place with you bank notifying them of the possible compromise of your details.

Not good news, but if everybody remains alert and vigilant through this time hopefully all of us can come out unscathed. What frustrates me are these stupid hackers who think it's okay or "fun" to compromise a system and steal people's information. Lets hope they are brought to justice and swiftly.

-Cub. =o)

it's been happening to a lot of businesses lately, I got something from dell recently as their records were hacked but I didn't worry about it as the purchase with them was years ago & it didn't include any bank details.

I had heard rumors that this is what happened and I'm sorry to seem them confirmed. Still, I'm glad Sony is finally shedding some light on the situation.

If people use credit card on PSN then I assume those idiots will use it quickly before getting caught since April 19th-April 20th as we haven't seen any of 70 million ppl who use it see any unauthorized ccs data use yet then maybe they only broke Sony network but not the data.

since Sony only said "might" of stolen information from 70 million but I don't think so but never say never.

I used PSN (I am not a PSN-Plus) to buy games through PS3 when I can but only on debit card but I do it manually instead of saving it but if someone used it without me knowing and saw it on my banks site. I'll get my $$ refund back to my card after reporting it and get a new debit card. I usually watch my ccs bank closely when I get home from work for a check-up to be on safe side but I'm already protected from Identity Protection and all other Protections if some idiot tries use number online purchase or go to bank in another state or in foreign country.

Just so you know, Florida is 1st rank in the U.S country on CC frauds and among others frauds information data. http://www.lifelock.com

unbelieveable.

In the UK there are fines for companies that let this happen to them. I haven't a clue what they'd do with an issue like this thats affected worldwide.

I haven't received an email yet, so maybe I got lucky. Or maybe Sony is just abysmally slow at sending out emails.

Sony has, apparently, shut down access to the PSN network both from the ps3 and the pc. Probably in an attempt to minimize web traffic while they fix things, but it'll keep me from accessing my account to change the password.

Yeah, I think we'll have to wait until the network is back up and functioning to change our passwords.

According to a recent Sony update, credit card information is safe. The credit card information was encrypted, everything else wasn't. (One blog I went to commented that it's like Sony was running a bank, kept all the credit card information in a vault and left everything else lying around on the floor) I'm still going to keep an eye on my debit/credit, but this bit of news a little comforting.

Well, I got my email from Sony today, so I guess they're just as quick about sending out the notices as they have been about releasing any other information about the incident.

Intruder Alert. . .


*** GAME OVER ***

It's times like these I am happy I am not a huge fan of online gaming.

Yeah, I've been using PSN mainly to get Fallout DLC and to get the GT5 updated event. So, I'm not really suffering from withdrawal. I'm just a little ticked that my info has been pilfered, but there's not much I can do about it.

Well, it seems things are getting worse for Sony. Seems like they got hacked, again!

Read this article here: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/05/s ... ment-hack/

This comes only a day after Sony's most recent press release stating that PSN services will be back online before the end of the week, including a more sophisticated system to prevent future intrusions: http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/05/ ... this-week/

....bad, bad, bad news. This means that over 100 million users have had their account details compromise (with possible theft of credit card details).

-Cub. =o)

The CVC numbers were not accessed, however, as those numbers are not stored on Sony's servers.

However, the number of actual stolen credit card numbers were around 22.500, last I heard. But that's still enough that I'm a bit worried. Even without the CVC numbers, there's damage to be done.

-Fred