Sony Delays PlayStation Network Reactivation

i4u writes "Earlier this week chatter in an IRC network led to speculation of a third attack on Sony's network. For its part, the company steadfastly promised that at least some services would resume by the end of this week. But now it looks like Sony has given up on that goal. The PSN reactivation has been delayed. Sony's explanation? They were 'unaware' of the extent of the attacks on their system."

Comments

Not Aware?

[Squiddie]

Well, what ARE they doing scheduling reactivation if they are not aware of the extent of the attacks? Something tells me that Sony just has poor handle on everything security related.

Re:Not Aware?

[DrXym]

What is it about PSN that warrants such a long downtime? Just re-image all servers running the thing, one by one, to ensure no backdoors remain, and bring it all back up. It doesn't take two weeks!

Are you serious? There are 60 million PS3s that implicitly trust PSN. If the service is hacked then it's not hard to imagine the damage that could be done. Someone could remotely brick boxes, wipe trophies, spam users with messages, clear accounts or otherwise maliciously interfere with the service.

As for the time frame I suggest if you drew a network plan of PSN or a similarly sized service that you're probably looking at hundreds of servers for login, downloads, streaming downloads, web, messaging, databases, credit card processing, Home and so forth. Reviewing the security around each, and the code they run and ensuring appropriate changes and hardening the perimeter and setting up a DMZ and so forth is time consuming. Apparently they're even moving datacentres and doing a few other things on their existing roadmap.

Two weeks is ambitious to say the least. I expect when it does come back up it will be a skeleton service with services coming back on line after that.

Who & Why

[F34nor]

is this black hat or revenge for the removal of install other os?

Re:Who & Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Never attribute to malice (of "hackers") that which is adequately explained by stupidity (of Sony).

Re:Who & Why

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

My suspicion(totally without any unusual knowledge, of course) is that it is a mixture: The core penetrations, and the exfiltration of CC details and other identity-thefty stuff look a lot like the usual commercially motivated electronic criminal activity. However, the sorts of people who do that are opportunists, and generally not morons: Sony's current deep unpopularity with a segment of ideological hackers/bored 4channers likely provides both a certain amount of 'free' security testing done by third parties and then dumped into forums and chatrooms, there for the taking, and provides a certain amount of concealment: If only through sheer bulk, wading through all the not-too-competent attacks mounted by assorted under-18s who would probably get a month in juvy and are barely worth hunting down, in order to pick out the sophisticated operators is going to be rather more difficult than just finding the sophisticated operators.

As for the support/goodwill thing, I suspect that those doing the attacks aren't really interested in that. The professional thieves, of course, don't care; because they are there for the money. Any ideological attackers don't care because they are there to make Sony bleed and/or clearly demonstrate the vulnerability of services and hardware cryptographically locked to a single service. The support of Sony's customers is worthless to them; because(by design) Sony's customers have basically no power. Creating as much angst and suffering among those customers, on the other hand(in addition to any amusement that might be derived) hurts Sony's commercial standing.

Re:Who & Why

[UncleTogie]

Incorrect if you live in Texas; it's illegal to leave your keys in an unattended car.

Here's a link from the Texas DMV stating as such: http://www.txdmv.gov/protection/auto_theft/hold_key.htm

Here's a link to the actual statute: http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/TN/htm/TN.545.htm#545.404

This .PDF will show that one and some other minor offenses you might not have been aware of. http://www.tmcec.com/public/files/File/The%20Recorder/2003/NL11_03.pdf

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[Lunix Nutcase]

My senses suggest me that the theft of personal data is just a coveup story by Sony.

Because Sony would want to willingly pay for millions of dollars in identity theft services when no personal data was taken?

Translating corporate-speak

[Animats]

Sony:

"We're still working to confirm the security of the network infrastructure, as well as working with a variety of outside entities to confirm with them of the security of the system. Verifying the system security is vital for the process of restoration. Additional comprehensive system checks and testing are still required, and we must complete that process before bringing the systems online."

To understand this, read VISA International's "What to Do if Compromised..

"Working with a variety of outside entities to confirm with them of the security of the system." means VISA International and/or MasterCard, Inc have invoked their contractual rights to send in auditors, security experts, and computer forensics experts. They do that for big security breaches. "Additional comprehensive system checks and testing are still required, and we must complete that process before bringing the systems online." means "VISA, etc. won't let us go back on line until we pass their security tests."

So Sony isn't entirely in control of when they go back on line.

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[cbhacking]

Damn good thing, too. I have no particular love for the credit card companies, but I trust them to act in their best interest here, which is:
A) Ensure that people are happy with using their credit cards (which means their data isn't getting stolen, and they aren't needing to replace their cards, and ideally anybody whose card info did get stolen gets it re-issued with a new number and expiration immediately).
B) Ensure that they aren't going to have to eat a bunch of fraudulent charges (a large batch of fraudulent charges is a huge headache, and possibly impacts their bottom line; I believe in a case like this they can make Sony pay instead though).
C) Ensure that this won't happen again next month (meaning Sony has to actually get their security right this time).

These goals are either beneficial or irrelevant to me, as a credit card user. However, they contrast strongly with Sony's interests, which are:
A) Get PSN et. al. up again ASAP (customers want this, but if it's not secure this time they'll just be attacked again).
B) Get people to pay them money again (the credit card agencies won't allow this while there's a high risk of that info getting stolen).
C) PR damage control (sorry guys, you screwed the pooch and have already lost your reputation for security).

The only one of those that benefits anybody outside the company is (A), (B) would help the credit card companies except I'm sure this fiasco cost them, and (C) is arguably detrimental to the ability of customers to make informed decisions.

Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[Sarusa]

Look at what they're doing here:
      - completely rearchitecting their security and network
      - completely reimplementing their security and network
      - physically moving the servers
      - redeploying this worldwide

Two weeks? I don't f@#4ing think so. They're just stringing you along or they really do have no idea what they're doing (I'll buy either).

I wouldn't use it for a couple weeks either till they work out the bugs. Me, I've been playing Portal 2 on PC.

Honestly, this is pathetic.

[anlprb]

I happened to use the same ID/PW on both my PSN and my LOTRO account. Three months ago, someone had the ID to the LOTRO account and sold all my stuff. Long story short, Sony has NO F'ING CLUE how long they were being exploited. I never logged in anywhere other than personal machines to LOTRO, so there is NO WAY it could have been stolen from anywhere else. They were broken into over three months ago and they never knew it. They only just found out because some silly kid who had access decided to put a file on their servers that they FINALLY SAW. This honestly is pathetic. I have no faith in Sony anymore. They lost me and everyone I advise in a technical capacity. They will never know how many people that is, but I will. Standard response now is. Go with Xbox for games, Western Digital streaming device for Netflix, and a stand alone blue ray player if needed. At least Microsoft knows it is a target and has some semblance of a clue for NOT putting all of their proverbial eggs in one basket. I don't even know how to express the anger that I have for something that I thought would be safe and turned out to have them just having completely no clue on. For a major corporation, this is pathetic. There is no going back from this. Everyone in my family and everyone who I consult at work and personally will be told what happened and how long it has happened. I have already had people say "I thought Sony was a good company." Well, they weren't. To them, this is PR, to me, this is my personal information and my time spent in a game. Wasted, because of their hubris. Thanks Sony. You just lost me, my family and everyone whose ear I can bend. You won't care, but I do.