Worst security breach ever playstation network hacked Not xbox live “identity theft”
Senator Wants Answers on PlayStation Network Breach.ys after Congress announced plans to tackle the iPhone tracking issue, a Connecticut senator is also asking for answers about Sony’s PlayStation Network security breach.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, wrote to Sony president Jack Tretton on Tuesday, expressing concern that the company did not immediately notify its customers about the breach and asking that Sony provide them with access to financial data security services.
Sony’s PlayStation network has been having issues since last Wednesday, but it was not until last night that Sony confirmed that hackers had obtained personal information from the network, which possibly included credit cards. Sony said it expects to “restore some services” within a week, but did not elaborate.
Blumenthal said he was “troubled” by Sony’s delayed reaction. “A breach of such a widely used service immediately raises concerns of data privacy, identity theft, and other misuse of sensitive personal and financial data, such as names, email addresses, and credit and debit card information,” he wrote.
Blumenthal suggested that Sony provide customers with access to free credit reports for two years. “Affected individuals should also be provided with sufficient insurance to protect them from the possible financial consequences of identity theft,” he said.
In a Tuesday blog post, Patrick Seybold, senior director of corporate communications and social media at Sony, insisted that “there’s a difference in timing between when we identified there was an intrusion and when we learned of consumers’ data being compromised.”
Sony learned of the intrusion on April 19 and subsequently shut down its services. It then brought in outside experts to assess the damage, which took some time, he said.
“It was necessary to conduct several days of forensic analysis, and it took our experts until yesterday to understand the scope of the breach,” Seybold wrote. “We then shared that information with our consumers and announced it publicly this afternoon.”
For more, see Sony’s PlayStation Network Outage: What You.ys after Sony shut down its PlayStation Network, an online service for Sony console owners, due to an unexplained outage, hactivist group Anonymous has disclaimed credit for the outage.
In a Friday post entitled “For Once, It Wasn’t Us” Anonymous wrote:
“While it could be the case that other Anons have acted by themselves AnonOps was not related to this incident and takes no responsibility for it. A more likely explanation is that Sony is taking advantage of Anonymous’ previous ill-will towards the company to distract users from the fact the outage is actually an internal problem with the companies servers.”
On Thursday, Sony announced it had shut down the PlayStation Network for a “full day or two” to investigate an unknown outage, which it confirmed the day before. Reports also said that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe had posted its suspicions about a hacking attempt, but by press time, the European PlayStation blog had been apparently edited to mimic the U.S. version.
On Friday morning Sony posted another update hinting at the work of hackers, “An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services,” it wrote in a blog post.
In March Anonymous briefly took down the PlayStation Network to kickstart “Operation Sony,” a campaign meant to cripple Sony for its recent lawsuits against PS3 hackers.
But within days, Anonymous reversed the hack due to complaints from gamers that the takedown was doing more harm than good, and hacked into the Sony Careers page instead. Anonymous also organized an in-store boycott.
Meanwhile, earlier this month PS3 hacker George “Geohot” Hotz and Sony settled their suit, and Hotz agreed to a permanent injunction against posting information that Sony wanted removed. Sony sued Hotz in January for hacking the Sony PS3 and posting his circumvention technique on his Web site, as well as links for others to do the same.
Duration : 0:1:32
What’s New: Episode 9 / $1 Million Identity Theft Insurance Policy
Yesterday Howard Stringer released an letter to all users and gamers of the PlayStation®Network in regards to the outage, network, etc. Plus, to top it off Mr. Stringer announced a $1 million identity theft insurance policy as well….
One thing to keep in mind that $1 Million (times 77+) insurance is something that American’s can’t even get for Health care, so “Qoodos” to Sony.
• May. 05, 2011: A Letter from Howard Stringer http://bit.ly/jO67bc
Game Information:
• After centuries of Mortal Kombat, Emperor Shao Kahn has finally defeated Raiden and his allies. Faced with extinction, Raiden has one last chance. To undo the Emperor’s victory, he must strike Shao Kahn where he is vulnerable…The Past.
Platform: PlayStation 3, XBOX360
Publisher: Warner Home Video Games
Developer: NetherRealm Studios (formerly Midway Games Chicago)
Category: Fighting
Duration : 0:1:34
PSN back online “shortly” Plus free gifts for PS3 & PSN users – Sony press conference update
PSN functionality to be fully restored
Sony have recently stated that their online function is to be fully restored, region-by-region, but as of yet have not given a date for this to start happening.
The first services to be restored will include online play, the PlayStation Home social network, and access to account management (where users can reset their passwords), friends lists, and live chat functionality.
Users with un-expired movie rentals will be able to resume watching content. Restoration of these services will begin “shortly.”
As for goodwill gestures meant to appease the tens of millions of angry gamers who had their information stolen, Sony is in the process of crafting a package that will provide users with “free entertainment content”
The exact nature of this content has yet to be revealed.
Current PSN users will have access to a free 30-day trial of PSN Plus, a subscription service that provides early or exclusive access to betas, game demos, and premium downloadable content.
Existing subscribers will be given a free month of PSN service–a value of about $5–as will subscribers to use Sony’s Unlimited music service.
For those interested, Sony will provide assistance to enrol in identity theft protection programs.
For starters, the company is creating a new executive position with the title Chief Information Security Officer, although nobody has been appointed to this position as of yet.
Other security measures include the addition of enhanced encryption to protect user data and instalment of a variety of unnamed automated tools designed to detect and defend against software intrusions. Sony are also creating a plan that was already in place to move to a new and more secure data centre.
When they do get back online, end users can expect to encounter a forced system update that will entail a mandatory password reset. Sony says that these new passwords can only be changed on the system on which they were created or with email verification.
Duration : 0:2:48
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker Job Scams www.IDTheftSecurity.com
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert discuses Internet Security and Job Scams from a McAfee reportwww.IDTheftSecurity.com
Duration : 0:3:30