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."

Comments

passwords?

[jaymz666]

Seriously? They were storing passwords in a way that could be unencrypted?

Re:passwords?

[0123456]

This seems like an amateur mistake. Who are these companies hiring lately?

The lowest bidder?

Re:passwords?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

My DARE officer told me that hash is illegal, and my health teacher says that salt causes high blood pressure...

Re:passwords?

[Kuukai]

- If you wanted to play any of the games online, you had to have a PSN account. Which meant you had to provide a credit card whether you were ever going to buy anything or not.

Wrong. This is not true at all. You can play games without ever providing a credit card. On the other hand, they do require your name, birthdate, and mailing address.

Re:passwords?

[gstoddart]

Wrong. This is not true at all. You can play games without ever providing a credit card. On the other hand, they do require your name, birthdate, and mailing address.

And people wonder why so many on-line accounts are set up with completely bogus information.

Why should I be providing all of this information to play *(&^%*&^ video games? This is precisely why I don't give most companies this information -- because I don't trust them with it. Not to keep it safe, not to use it as they say, and not to provide it to someone else.

Sony isn't using the term "massive identity theft"

[elrous0]

They're calling it an "unexpected mass friendship opportunity."

Credit card numbers WERE taken too

[Anonymous Coward]

I posted this in the last thread, but PSN users are already seeing their credit cards being fraudulently used!

So if you're affected, CANCEL YOUR CARD!

It's not a possibility anymore, it's a certainty.

Fallout

[Canth7]

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?

Re:Fallout

[X.25]

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?

Many years ago, I was in a meeting with heads of a bank, discussing their need for penetration testing, auditing, etc.

So, after all that talk, one guy simply asks:

"Why would we spend dozens and hundreds of thousands of dollars on security services/products/staff, when it costs us 200 dollars to issue few press releases that claim how no valuable data was lost, and everything will be just fine?"

I had no answer to this.

That's why in 2011. we are witnessing things like this.

That's why in 2011, Sony will still be determined to be PCI/DSS compliant, although they probably don't satisfy 50%-70% of requirements.

It's because they don't give a fuck and don't care. There is nothing you/we can do to them, they are on the top of the food chain.

Because humans are greedy, like flashy toys and are too blind to see what's happening in front of their eyes.

Oh well, back to work :)

Re:Firmware

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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.

Re:Unencrypted = Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I trust Congress to make laws that will cause secure implementations to be made.

Remember, these are the guys who can't make a tax code that requires companies to actually pay _any_ tax on billions of dollars' of income.

That's it? "Sorry"?

[X.25]

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.