Slashdot Mirror
77 Million Accounts Stolen From Playstation Network
Runaway1956 was one of many users to continue to update us about the intrusion we've been following this week.
"Sony is warning its millions of PlayStation Network users to watch out for identity-theft scams after hackers breached its security and plundered the user names, passwords, addresses, birth dates, and other information used to register accounts. Sony's stunning admission came six days after the PlayStation Network was taken down following what the company described as an 'external intrusion'. The stolen information may also include payment-card data, purchase history, billing addresses, and security answers used to change passwords, Sony said on Tuesday. The company plans to keep the hacked system offline for the time being, and to restore services gradually. The advisory also applies to users of Sony's related Qriocity network."
Seriously? They were storing passwords in a way that could be unencrypted?
Why are you surprised that big companies would do stupid things? Particularly one who thought that installing rootkits on peoples' computers when they played a CD was a pretty darn cool idea?
More interesting to me than how the intrusion occurred or how lax Sony's security practices are will be what the public backlash level is like. IT security departments tend to whip up a frenzy with the potential for "end of the company" concerns for data breaches on a regular basis. However, reality is that data loss doesn't always seem to have a particularly negative effect for the company that loses the information. Point in example would be the TJX data loss - http://it.slashdot.org/story/07/03/29/1618239/TJX-Is-Biggest-Data-Breach-Ever. Somehow this hardly seems to have put a dent in corporate profits. TJX's stock is up 100% since 2006 when the breach occurred. http://www.google.com/finance?q=tjx Point being is, if nothing seriously negative happens to Sony then it's no wonder that firms continue to have poor security practices. After all, why bother spending the effort and money to secure data when there is no return on the investment?
I wonder if Sony regrets waving the red flag. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20050310-17.html. Anybody heard from geohotz in the last few days?
Was the sensitive information deleted from Sony's system, denying them access to it? If not, how is that stealing? I thought the People of Slashdot were against calling it "stealing" when information is merely duplicated without taking access away from the original holder?
Never. Trust. The. Client.
If their online systems' security depends on all clients playing by a specific set of rules, it is Broken.(even barring custom firmware, PS3s communicate over the internet via reasonably normal protocols, so it isn't as though the public-facing infrastructure was ever invisible to PCs running whatever people wanted them to run).
Especially for something as large and potentially valuable as 77 million accounts, many with cards on file, there would just be no way that you could make the client secure enough to serve as a trusted part of your security system: your pirate will give up if you can't flash a firmware in software or do a relatively simple mod-chip install. A more serious hacker might be willing do dump some ROMs, if possible, maybe snoop bus traces if they can get to them, install mod chips that require SMT skills, etc. For 77 million accounts, though, you have to consider the possibility that somebody would commission a serious forensic teardown of your system, decapping, microscopes, and the lot.
In a world with plenty of well understood crypto schemes like public-private key systems where you can prove yourself without a shared secret... why the hell do we trust so much of our wealth with a trivial to see/copy account number being tossed around like crazy?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If the password is stored 'in the clear' on the server side and treat the password as a shared secret, then *if* you design the authentication right, you render man in the middle infeasible with the tradeoff of storage attack being a large exposure.
And why couldn't a hash of the password be used as a shared secret? As long as the client can do the hashing, I see no reason the hash couldn't be used in place of the original password.
As a potential answer to my own question, maybe they wanted to make sure their log in form would work on a web browser without scripting.
You don't really sound like you've played the game, the way you talk about it makes it sound very serious. You don't actually have to kill innocent bystanders unless you want to, just the same as real life. Many missions call for you killing people, but what do you expect in a game about gangsters? Actually, you don't even have to do the killing missions if you don't want to.. you could just be a taxi driver, paramedic, or firefighter if you really wanted to just be super-good all the time.
which is totally what she said
The CVV or CV2 codes aren't required to make purchases in all places. Yes, for most cards you aren't liable for fraudulent purchases, but the money has to come from some where so the credit card companies end up taking a hit and they raise their rates. Besides if you know your card number might have been stolen and don't report it, you might end up having to pay for fraudulent charges since at that point it's basically your fault for not telling the credit card company.
More importantly, the hackers also have your name, address and birth date. That information is nearly enough info, combined with the credit card information, to have your card canceled and another one issued to them. They could initiate a USPS change of address (since they have your name and address) to wherever they want, call your credit card company to have a new card sent out and then simply activate that card when they get it.
It's much easier to preemptively have your credit card company reissue a card now, then try and go clean up a much more complicated mess in the future. That's what I did and my credit card company said that was a smart move on my part.
So, you peek into PS3 internals, you get slapped with lawsuits, police raids your home and they send army of lawyers after everyone.
Someone steals 77m accounts from Sony, all they have to say is basically...
Sorry?
Fuck you Sony.