Slashdot Mirror
PSN Up, And Then Down Again
RdeCourtney writes "The PlayStation Network is down again. Sony had originally enabled passwords to be reset onscreen simply by entering an email address and date of birth. Whoever has the data from Sony, could, in theory, then reset any of the captured users accounts simply by entering the details they stole."
I've never been a particularly big fan of Sony, mind you. But even I am shocked by the level of security incompetence they've shown over this whole thing. This is a major corporation, for fuck's sake! Do they even *have* a full-time security staff in there online division? Their press releases make it sound like they only stumbled on the whole PSN hack by accident and had to run out and contract for a bunch of security people. Surely to god they had SOMEONE monitoring security, right?
As one of the effected users, I'm just glad I never gave them my credit card number (fortunately, I never bought anything on PSN). Now, I wouldn't give them a credit card number on a *dare*. Hell, I won't even give them my real *name* ever again. No online system is secure, but theirs looks like a complete joke.
Meanwhile, you have the CEO of the company dismissing this whole thing as a "hiccup," which pretty aptly demonstrates just how seriously Sony apparently takes its security. No way I want my CC number or private info involved in their next "hiccup."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Did Sony's security team even THINK about testing and verifying they were doing was indeed secure when they brought the system back up again?
Sounds like the corporate culture over at Sony is horrible. First the DRM scandal, then the PSN hack and now this.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
they are the company who shut down japanese swg servers suddenly one morning to the face of at least 4000 players without warning. they decided the servers were not profitable, and they decided to shut them off to their customers' faces without a word. if you played a char for 2-3 years and had memories etc, you couldnt even take a screenshot.
that is TOTALLY leaving aside how they screwed their customers en large in star wars galaxies, at the cost of screwing up the game. they had the habit of routinely changing skill properties in order to force people to drop entire skill trees and level others so that they would keep paying - spent 2 months of your play time building up a character ? well - come next patch, you had to ditch on average 30% of your character and level another tree to remain viable. as long as you kept paying, it was all ok by soe.
sony deserves whatever is shoved up their ass.
Read radical news here
Are they really that dumb?
Yes. I'd stake $599US on it.
One way to verify who you are is to either require you reset your password from the console you last connected to the PSN with or just send an email to the email address they have stored... Because, theoretically neither of those items are accessible to the hackers.
"One can not truly appreciate Shakespeare until you have heard it in it's original Klingon" -Star Trek
It seems to me that the 13-yr olds that run FARK have a far better security system in place than Sony does. Their people have no plan, no concept, no big picture at all, of what to do.
They are grasping at straws, throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, or whatever tired car analogy you wish to entertain. Point is: I think it's time they gave up and went home.
If they are lucky, they will shut down for 8 months and rebuild from scratch. If they are stupid (most likely scenario), they will continue to prop up a house of cards with a few pieces of sticky tape, and it will come down again and again, until no one is left and they've wasted a great deal of money only to arrive at the conclusion that they should have done the rebuild from scratch in the first place.
Of course by then, management will look at the numbers and get out of the game business entirely, leaving MS and Nintendo.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
But I've heard reports that the e-mail reset page is down.
The e-mail included a key to keep this from happening, but someone must have broken that key generation scheme.
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Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
At the time I type this, the PSN is actually up and running. Or at least, it's online gaming components are. The Store and other features that require payments are still offline, as they have been since the initial shutdown several weeks ago. But you can, should you feel so inclined, log in and play games online at present. Whether this may change over the next few hours is open to question - while it wouldn't completely surprise me, I suspect that Sony will try to keep the network itself up this time..
What's just been taken offline is web-interface for changing passwords. Now, that's still pretty bad - in fact, given how stupid the mistake in this case is, it's verging on the awful - but I dare say that a lot of PSN users may not actually notice until Sony tells them. Furthermore, just to add a little perspective, stupid though Sony's mistake here is (and it is very stupid indeed and then some), no additional personal information or credit card details beyond what has already been leaked will have been compromised as a result of this - not least because you can't, so far as I know, actually input new credit card details into the PSN yet.
So it's a further embarrassment for Sony and will further undermine confidence in them (do you really, really want to trust them with your credit card details ever again). But unless I'm reading things wrong - and if I am then happy to be corrected- there's not been any actual additional harm done to users this time.
I'm sorry for all those who I've inconvenienced. This time it was my fault. I created a new username for security purposes. Apparently, PSN didn't take too kindly to the username "; drop table Users; --"
Similes are like metaphors
Give Microsoft credit - xbox live is setup/run extremely well. They had to compete with xbconnect, Xlink Kai, and other freebies back in the day; they stepped up and created a better alternative. Everyone was willing to pay for a service - as long as it was worth it. It was and still is.
The revenue has allowed them to build a better network and keep it up. I'm not claiming they too couldn't be hacked, just highly doubt it would be to this level.
... it's not just for a day.
-- B. D.
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
No, because for 90% of those users the PSN password and the email password are going to be the same.
The only solution is new accounts and import trophies from the old one, but not anything sensitive.
Actually, they did. I have one of them:
To reset your PlayStation(R)Network password, please click on the link below. This link will expire in 24 hours from the time that it was sent. The link will direct you to a PlayStation(R)Network web page and allow you to enter and confirm your new password.
https://store.playstation.com/accounts/security/resetPassword.action?token=--
Obviously I removed my token.
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Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
Whoosh.
Sending an email ensures that the unique info necessary to re-register gets to the correct person (unless their email account has _already_ been hacked, which they should already know about and have taken care of). And of course, anyone who was on the PSN and hasn't already changed their other passwords (assuming they reused their PSN one) is a fool.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The Japanese PSN isn't up because the Japanese government isn't letting them put it back up until they can demonstrate they've properly secured it.
Speaking of police work, Slashdot editors should try actually verifying their stories. PSN isn't down. It's up right now I type this. Apparently, what's down is the email reset page.
As for your credit card number, there is no evidence credit card data was obtained in the PSN breach. Credit card companies would have noticed an increase in fraud and alerted their customers. The alarmism on forums is ridiculous, and most of it is driven from Sony hatred rather than facts. This is the website on which a commenter to a story on the Japan earthquake delaying the Sony NGP justified the lethal disaster by saying, "Anything that hurts Sony is good for the consumer." It got +3 Funny.
Obviously I removed my token.
You should apply for sony's online security team.
24 hours? My email said it expires in 3. And it was sent at 1am. No joke.
(they sent another later about 40 mins ago) Also, I just tried clicking on my password reset link, and it sent me to a "server is down" page. =/ Oh well. Someone else (apparently japanese) signed up for an account with my email address and I was hoping to take it over and delete it with the password reset.