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?

[0100010001010011]

I've seen hamsters escape.
I've seen chips use tools at the zoo.

Don't degrade them by lumping them in with Sony Security.

Re:Not Aware?

[node 3]

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.

Really? This is something you are berating Sony for?

They are doing the exact right thing here. First, they assessed the damage and worked to get PSN up as fast as possible. During that process, they discovered that the intrusion was more extensive than they thought, and instead of simply bringing PSN back up on their original schedule, they are allowing new information to alter their plans.

If this were some Linux archive, like for example sourceforge, or the Debian repositories, and they did the exact same thing, you'd be heaping praise upon them for doing the right thing and not adhering to bullshit corporate image demands, but since it's Sony who's doing the right thing, it must be bad somehow, right?

Re:Not Aware?

[TemperedAlchemist]

And something tells me you should read up on your computer forensics. Not knowing the extent of the damage immediately is common in most computer forensics investigation. At the end of the day you're simply pointing your finger at Sony without evidence or legitimate reason. Skepticism is good, criticism without reason or evidence is foolish.

Re:Not Aware?

[Anrego]

Just re-image all servers running the thing, one by one, to ensure no backdoors remain, and bring it all back up.

One would assume they are also beefing up security to prevent this from happening again. Re-imaging the servers back to the state that let them get hacked in the first place is probably not sufficient. Tell you the truth I can't see how they could do anything substantial within a period of weeks to take them from the clearly messed up state they are in now to a state where people will trust their info with Sony again. Something like this should take months.. but the horde of angry gamers won't wait that long.

In this case we have an army of paying customers locked out of a major feature of the product.

Indeed. That month of free access to something most people don't care about isn't gonna cut it for many. Sony is gonna have to make some serious reparations here. They've probably already lost a metric ass-tonne of customers regardless of what they do at this point, and there are probably a group of customers who don't care about this outage and will stick with playstation regardless. The larger middle angry gamer group however, they are going to need to find the right balance between cost of lost business and cost of keeping that business. Should be interesting to see what they do.

Re:Not Aware?

[Daniel Phillips]

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!

I suspect that restoring their user data from backups was never tested and turns out to be harder then they hope. Perhaps they now find themselves writing a lot of custom code trying to rebuild a database without dangling links and halfway up to date. I also think that Sony worked hard at digging themselves a very deep karma hole and now they have fallen into it.

Re:Not Aware?

[petermgreen]

I'd think with any complex system it would be easy to get to a state where you believe that you have figured out the extent of the damage but then later discover some damage that you missed in the intial investigation.

After discovering you missed something you would then have to do a load more investigation as to the implications of the stuff you missed.

Re:Not Aware?

[node 3]

Wow, this is a new low for Slashdot. I'm a "shill" for not being a fucking moron who thinks it's impossible for Sony to ever do anything right? When your shit gets hacked, you take it offline until you can put it back up safely. This isn't being a "shill", it's just being rational and not being a whiny little bitch just because we are supposed to hate some company.

Re:Not Aware?

[Valen0]

Debian.org was compromised back in 2003. You can read a blow-by-blow account of the attack at: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/11/msg00012.html and http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/12/msg00001.html

It took Debian about 3 weeks to get all affected services back online after the attack.

Re:Not Aware?

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

I always figured 3 chimps and a hamster were far more likely to randomly type out some Perl than they would Shakespeare.

Re:Not Aware?

[arcade]

Just re-image all servers running the thing, one by one, to ensure no backdoors remain, and bring it all back up

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of how Sony /not/ should do it.

The gentleman known as "shutdown -p now", seems to suggest that Sony should use their energy to get the servers back into a state where they can be re-breached within minutes of going back online!

Of course, this is exactly what we should expect from armchair know-it-alls. One should not trust sysadmins / system engineers who knows the situation and how to take care of it. The armchair know-it-all will scream "No! They made it this bad in the first place" - without caring one moment to think about the layer known as "management". The layer that demands that "if it works, do not touch it at all! it works! Downtime is Verboten!"

It doesn't take two weeks!

They have to:
  1. Remake installation routine
  2. Reinstall servers
  3. Reinstall software
  4. Reload the user data .. this is probably done within a day or two.

Then they have to:
  5. Harden the new systems.
  6. Harden the firewalls.
  7. Pentest the shit out of it
  8. Get it audited.
  9. Re-harden, according to audit-report
  10. Get audited again.
  11. Repeat the two steps above until audit report is clean.

And this didn't even touch onto the huge topic of making sure that there isn't any breach of workstations that can be used to gain administrative access to the systems and so forth. It doesn't touch upon the topic of verifying user data integrity. It doesn't touch upon the topic of checking for backdoors that gains the attacker elevated access to the network, without admin privileges (but with an easier attack vector from being completely outside).

Meh!

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.

Re:Not Aware?

[DrXym]

You deserve a refund if you are on PSN+, you deserve an apology and some form of compensation as goodwill for the time you lost playing online. You absolutely do not deserve a refund on the price of your console or your games. With the exception of purely online games, all the rest work perfectly well in offline mode until the service returns given that PSN is not mandatory for most games except for the likes of MAG.

Re:Not Aware?

[Builder]

More importantly, if it takes a woman 9 months to make a baby, why can't 9 women make a baby in 1 month!?

Re:Not Aware?

[ilguido]

Running up-to-date software would probably be a good start. The rest isn't rocket science either. Creating secure networks is not some esoteric art. I mean, plenty companies out there run their servers for years without having issues like that. Some even do it on *gasp* Windows servers! Maybe Sony needs to hire some of people who manage that?

There are good evidences that their servers were up to date:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1549251&postcount=491
http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=2673715&postcount=961

Noboby has fully assessed what happened. Nobody but the usual mythomaniac guys that crowd the big net.

Who & Why

[F34nor]

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

Re:Who & Why

[somersault]

Yay, let's take revenge on the removal of OtherOS by removing the remaining features from our PlayStations, and those of all our friends! Pissing off the gaming community is sure to garner their support and goodwill!

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

[Pharmboy]

Occam's Razor may apply. - I thought I read that they were running an unpatched version of Apache on a system without a firewall, including here on /. The motive could have simply been "low hanging fruit with a high return". The real question is "why the hell did it take so long for someone to pwn them?"

Assigning it to "them black hat hackers" seems akin to them blaming Anonymous. Normally, if it was done for hactivism, someone would have taken credit for it by now. The simplest explanation would appear to be that they did it to make money.

Re:Who & Why

[artor3]

Yes, I'm sure Sony just accidentally forced hackers to break into their system. Just like when you forget to lock your doors, you are forcing someone to rob you.

Re:Who & Why

[Runaway1956]

Actually, Sony CLAIMS that hackers broke into their systems. They CLAIM to have found an incriminating file which they ATTRIBUTE TO Anonymous. Actually, none of us knows what the hell happened. Personally, I'm not believing much that Sony says. How's that saying go? "Pictures, or it didn't happen!"

Re:Who & Why

[shutdown -p now]

Pissing off the gaming community is sure to garner their support and goodwill!

Given that OtherOS was always a geek feature, there was never any support to speak of in the first place. The majority of PS users simply didn't care (and many didn't even know to care).

On the other hand, right now, Sony's image is significantly tarnished by them not being able to deal with the problem for so long. They can blame it on hackers all they want, but it's abundantly clear by now that it's also a matter of their incompetence that lead to the hack in the first place, and delays their efforts to recover. In the end, users don't really matter - all they know is that PSN is down (and will remain down, per TFA) while e.g Xbox Live works just fine.

So, as far as garnering support goes, this hack is definitely not taking any points. But as pure spiteful revenge? It's wildly successful, if you ask me.

Re:Who & Why

[Z34107]

Yay, let's take revenge on the removal of OtherOS by removing the remaining features from our PlayStations, and those of all our friends! Pissing off the gaming community is sure to garner their support and goodwill!

The "gaming community"? Do you mean the petulant whiners who think George Hotz is paying his lawyers in stolen CC numbers? Or the ones who seem completely oblivious to the months of identity theft hell they're about to face because of Sony's incompetence?

Of course, leaving all that information completely unsecured would've been perfectly okay, if not for those meddling kids.

In seriousness, Sony's incompetence is borderline illegal. But, you think this is homebrew's fault?

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:Who & Why

[mug funky]

there's a problem with Sony having no liability, as it was not their information to be careless with.

i sincerely hope breaches like this lead to legislation that forces a duty of care for any company that collects customer information.

if Sony have indeed been negligent in their security practices (which i think most slashdotters would agree they have been), they should be legally liable for it. as should anybody who holds information about others.

medical records are kept safe by law. CC details should be no different.

Re:Who & Why

[ArsonSmith]

Yea, I mean look at the way Sony was dressed. She deserved to bet raped.

Re:Who & Why

[chebucto]

Irrelevant. Try to imagine the thief explaining the same concept to a cop. Think he'll get half the jail time? No. Claims adjusters and cops have different remits.

Maybe that was a protest after all

[spaceplanesfan]

My senses suggest me that the theft of personal data is just a coveup story by Sony.
I think some angry hacker just wiped out their servers, and backups are as usual stored on /dev/null.
And so they have to rebuild the whole thing.
Anyway revenge is complete regardless of whom did that.
Sad that users are possibly affected as well.

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?

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[bloodhawk]

It doesn't make sense at all, a complete disaster where everything unrecoverable would be a far better story than 100 million accounts stolen both from a PR point of view and from a monetary point of view. The current situation will see them stuck in legal and financial problems for years to come not to mention a serious loss of faith with consumers.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[bloodhawk]

I actually hate sony, but silly conspiracy theories just make the tinfoil hat brigade look stupid. The majority of the time the simplest answer is the correct one and to suggest that sony would choose a more embaressing and costly scenario to cover up a less embaressing and costly one is like migrating from tinfoil hats to full body suits of the stuff.

And?

[coffii]

I cant say I'm surprised, if they have to rebuild their network expect it to take months, this really isnt a case of patching a windows server and rebooting.

I expect one of the things keeping them offline will be the credit card companies, they are probably the ones in control right now.

I know what's holding everything up.

[Lose]

They're having problems re-sorting all their credit card data stored on the admin's desktop by penis again. They must not have taken a screenshot.

This could take ages.

Original source

[Chris Mattern]

If you'd like to actually ready what Sony has to say for themselves instead of giving clicks to the self-promoting second-hand site: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/06/service-restoration-update/

Re:Original source

[MimeticLie]

this blows. we should all go out and kill anyone who claims to be anonymous, this is freaking stupid go away you dam hackers

This was the only post that mentioned Anonymous in the first 50 comments. Looks like Sony's users are starting to blame them for the breach and the downtime.

Hmm ...

[lennier1]

Translation:
"Someone changed the passwords to something other than the defaults and we can't get back into the servers again."

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.

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[debrain]

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

Sir –

Why not provide the service for free until Sony fixes their payment problem?

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[BKX]

Concerning 1.B: Merchants are the ones held responsible in cases of fraud. If you steal a credit card and buy $1000 worth of Wal-Mart shit, then Wal-Mart is out $1000 unless they can figure out who you are and either have you arrested so you can pay restitution or sue the crap out of you. Generally, most companies are forced to pick option C which is: bitch about it, fire someone and do nothing to stop it from happening again.

That's where your point 1.C comes in. VISA is going to do exactly 1.C by threatening to issue their contractually allowed $100,000 fine for a data breach if Sony doesn't fix the original problem, which can escalate to $500,000 if VISA wants to be a dick about it. That's probably the main reason why the PSN isn't back up. Well, that and if Sony reactivates the PSN without at least looking like they took care of the problem, VISA could terminate Sony's merchant contract altogether. So I agree with you that Sony fixing this problem for real instead of for fake is caused by VISA acting in their own interests. It just happens to be that it's in Sony's best interest to shut up and take the hit for the team, lest they have real problems like not being able to take VISA. If it wasn't, you bet your ass the Sony wouldn't have shut down the PSN and would already be on our third or forth breach.

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[WuphonsReach]

The old saw comes to mind:

If you owe the bank $100, they are in control. If you owe the bank a few billion, you are in control.

No way in hell will VISA or MC terminate Sony's merchant contract. When the client is that large, normal rules no longer apply.

Bionic Commando Rearmed 2

[skirmish666]

Has anyone heard what Capcom has to say about people who would like to play their games?

Outdated servers? yes, 2.2.11 and 2.2.10

[Tei]

There has ben some rumours, back and for, discussing about what versions where installed in Sony servers.

Based on this nmap of the network:
http://pastebin.com/bAUHxtNr

Nmap scan report for account.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.177)
Host is up (0.077s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

Nmap scan report for login.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.162)
Host is up (0.085s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.

Nmap scan report for commerce.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.135)
Host is up (0.071s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 998 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
80/tcp closed http
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

Nmap scan report for auth.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.136)
Host is up (0.075s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

Nmap scan report for store.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.140)
Host is up (0.070s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

Nmap scan report for rc.store.playstation.net (199.108.4.141)
Host is up (0.080s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 998 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

Nmap scan report for native.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.144)
Host is up (0.073s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 (mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

* login server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* account server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* commerce server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* auth server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* store server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* rc store server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* native server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)

There are some talking about the server auth.np.ac.playstation.net. That one was updated.

Nmap scan report for auth.np.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.73)
Host is up (0.070s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.17

TL:DR
YES, Sony was using outdated servers. Unpatched? no idea.

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.

Re:Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[lennier]

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

You forgot:

* deploying mirrorshades razorgirls to the BAMA Sprawl to hunt the console cowboys who cracked their ICE
* impersonating the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority
* burning Chrome

I love living in the squalid cyberfuture.

Re:I don't care.

[BlueScreenO'Life]

No, just trying to trademark the circumflex marked 'a'.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[SniperJoe]

I hate to defend Sony here (it'll probably cost me some karma), but it seems like they're in a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" scenario. A week and a half ago, they disclosed the nature of the personal information breach and everyone seemed to be clamoring about how long it took them to say something. In this case, they release more information during their press conference a few days later, then they discovered that it was a bit worse than they had thought and now everyone is pointing the finger at them because they released information that was incorrect. In a perfect world, we would all be able to release completely accurate information right after the event, but everyone here knows the difficulty in that.

Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[sexconker]

I hate to defend Sony here (it'll probably cost me some karma), but it seems like they're in a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" scenario. A week and a half ago, they disclosed the nature of the personal information breach and everyone seemed to be clamoring about how long it took them to say something. In this case, they release more information during their press conference a few days later, then they discovered that it was a bit worse than they had thought and now everyone is pointing the finger at them because they released information that was incorrect. In a perfect world, we would all be able to release completely accurate information right after the event, but everyone here knows the difficulty in that.

No, Sony's in the typical "damned because they didn't" scenario.

Damned because they didn't respect consumer rights.
Damned because they didn't test their system's security.
Damned because they didn't realize that taunting hackers was a bad idea.
Damned because they built a shitty network and stored unencrypted credit card data (if at this point you still believe their bullshit about it being encrypted, you're the dippest of shits). Several friends have been hit with fraudulent charges in the last few weeks, and I myself have pending charges stuck in limbo on my card. I can't even fucking dispute the charge because it hasn't posted yet.
Damned because didn't figure out what happened before they started trying to fix it.
Damned because they didn't try to find out who did it, and just blamed "Anonymous" because they need to lash out at something.

Re:The most important thing

[mrcvp]

Stop plugging your own site it's lame, and you already have it in your signature.

Direct Fucking Link Here

[Seumas]

Rather than Slashdot linking to some site called "I4U" which links to Joystiq, which links to the article on Sony's playstation site, how about we just fucking link to the Sony article and do away with the blog self-promotion chain?

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/06/service-restoration-update/

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Seumas]

I haven't. But I also do not have a $35-billion company with 167,000 employees and hundreds of millions of customers and 65 years of experience with which to deploy one and properly react to emergencies like this without totally flubbing it up.

Sony...

[msauve]

SO, Not Yet.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[amicusNYCL]

It could have happened to your sacred Apple, Microsoft, or Nintendo.

No company is sacred. Yes, that includes your beloved Sony.

Then I get all excited to read, just to hear some basement dwelling fucktard bitch about the rootkit from almost a decade ago. Give me a break. You can buy or steal good music everywhere, just because Justin Timberlake's CD fuck up your shit and your're 36 doesn't make it an issue for everyone.

You're missing the point. It's the lack of concern for their customers that had people pissed off, not the fact that everyone complaining about the rootkit that happened 6 years ago was personally affected. You didn't care when Sony showed its colors before, but now all of a sudden you're all pissy about it because it affects you. Believe it or not, but a major reason why I never bought a PS is because of the rootkit thing. I'm not exactly regretting that decision at this point. It sounds like you are (if you aren't, you haven't learned anything).

It IS bullshit, but it happens, to everyone.

That's not true, that attitude is bullshit. Regardless, it is once again Sony's fault that they've fucked up and screwed all of their customers. You probably don't care about that though, you're going to line up to buy the next internet-enabled Sony TV that stores your data on it. It's not like Sony actively sets out to do horrible things, but the fact is that they now have a record of making a series of bad decisions that end up with their customers getting screwed.

Sony's punishment?

[future assassin]

Does anyone have any news if Sony will get any punishment for this from VISA/MS/Gov? I'm really interested who this works out regarding PCI/PA-DSS. Seems Sony should have gotten a whoops for this

If we don't see any harsh punishment for breaking PCI-DSS then the whole certification process/requirements are a farce and don't apply to big corporations.

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.