By Jim Rossignol on May 2nd, 2011 at 9:40 pm.
UPDATE: Here’s the news from Sony.
“Customers outside the United States should be advised that we further discovered evidence that information from an outdated database from 2007 containing approximately 12,700 non-US customer credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes) and about 10,700 direct debit records listing bank account numbers of certain customers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Spain may have also been obtained. We will be notifying each of those customers promptly.”
Oh dear. The sites for Everquest 2, Planetside, and a bunch of other games are now all defaulting to a “maintenance” screen. The message reads: “We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily. In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately. We will provide an update later today (Monday).”
This is probably just Sony being thorough after last weeks debacle, but it’s nevertheless going to be causing a few frustrations this evening.
02/05/2011 at 21:41 Nighthood says:
Boy am I glad I’m not a Sony customer.
02/05/2011 at 21:45 Teddy Leach says:
Boy, snap.
02/05/2011 at 21:48 Lewie Procter says:
Boy do I wish I wasn’t a Sony customer.
02/05/2011 at 21:55 Flameberge says:
Boy, this.
02/05/2011 at 22:11 James G says:
Boy, you can say that again. The Gawker hack made me change most my passwords, this made me change the rest of them. Fairly sure I didn’t have a card linked to my PSN account, but not sure enough that I can kick back and relax. Then there is the whole identity theft risk, only made more stupid by the fact it is ridiculously easy to commit identity theft.
02/05/2011 at 23:14 Bhazor says:
The only Sony product I have is an MP3 Walkman. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have my bank account details in it.
I’m pretty sure.
03/05/2011 at 06:02 rayne117 says:
Bhazor: you had better be sure. Else you’ll have to call the boys in blue to find the thief.
02/05/2011 at 21:50 Teddy Leach says:
Boy, I do wish they’d actually adequately protected everyone’s data.
02/05/2011 at 22:07 Diziet Sma says:
At least the passwords were hashed and not clear text as misreported in so many other places.
02/05/2011 at 22:15 jalf says:
Hashed, but without a salt, making it more or less pointless.
Even Sony is assuming that they have managed to get access to the passwords at the very least. Right now the interesting part is the CC info (which was encrypted, but that may have been broken, one way or the other)
03/05/2011 at 03:45 Snak says:
Boy, i second that :/
02/05/2011 at 21:53 Dawngreeter says:
Boy, you turn me
Inside out
And round and round
02/05/2011 at 21:53 spindaden says:
[Edit] I mean…
Boy, … does this actually stop people playing? or is it just the website and account stuff that’s offline?
02/05/2011 at 22:11 spindaden says:
According to some EQ fan site it does mean all their games are offline too :O
03/05/2011 at 00:16 stahlwerk says:
So this may be a ploy to (not so gently) nudge the star wars galaxies players towards the old republic? Cui bono, cui bono indeed…
*dons tinfoil*
03/05/2011 at 06:30 Zogtee says:
Stahlwerk wrote:
“So this may be a ploy to (not so gently) nudge the star wars galaxies players towards the old republic? Cui bono, cui bono indeed…”
That would be a fine conspiracy theory indeed, assuming there actually were any Star Wars Galaxies players.
02/05/2011 at 21:54 wazups2x says:
Boy, oh boy.
02/05/2011 at 22:28 BAReFOOt says:
Oh Sony boy, oh Sony boy, oh Soohoony… boy. Oh Sony boy, ooooh boy, oh boy… …oh Sony… WIII-WIII-WIII-WIIIIIIIIIHH!…
02/05/2011 at 21:57 Kaira- says:
Boy, I wonder what went through their minds. “Boy, let’s not use encryption, gigabytes are way too expensive these days”.
02/05/2011 at 22:11 Pantsman says:
Boy, encryption saves you gigabytes.
Just sayin’.
02/05/2011 at 22:30 BAReFOOt says:
No it doesn’t.
Just knowin’.
02/05/2011 at 23:36 geldonyetich says:
Maybe if you had some kind of hybrid encryption/compression scheme, but that likely wouldn’t be as secure as a scheme that dedicated more bytes to being misleading.
02/05/2011 at 23:38 Daiv says:
Someone is hacking our internet, our intranet, and our protocols! We need more megabytes! No – GIGABYTES! Somebody get me the Pentagon. This much hacked computing power might allow hackers to break through into the real world!
03/05/2011 at 05:01 Thants says:
They could hack the planet, you’re saying?
03/05/2011 at 13:34 VelvetFistIronGlove says:
Incorrect. Compressing plaintext before encrypting it does not diminish the security of the encryption. But you have to compress first to get any space savings—the output of a good encryption algorithm will be incompressible. Some encryption systems, for example PGP/GPG always compress the data before encrypting it in order to save bandwidth.
02/05/2011 at 21:58 Man Raised by Puffins says:
Buoy, a floating device that can have many different purposes.
02/05/2011 at 22:02 Rii says:
It just occurs to me that the ‘All Your Base’ meme would be perfect for this fiasco if it hadn’t burnt out years ago.
“What happen??”
02/05/2011 at 22:04 Teddy Leach says:
Boy, somebody set up us the bomb.
02/05/2011 at 22:15 Avenger says:
The stolen credit card level is over 9000
02/05/2011 at 22:33 BAReFOOt says:
Fortunately, it burnt out only for *you*.
There is a new child reaching interest-in-memes age every second.
And I will like the meme until the end of all times.
03/05/2011 at 00:12 stahlwerk says:
Main screen turn on! It is you!
Cats: How are you, gentlemen?
02/05/2011 at 22:05 crusader8463 says:
Girl, this is crazy!
02/05/2011 at 23:06 Nick says:
Girl, you’ll be a woman soon.
03/05/2011 at 09:44 Tams80 says:
“Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”
02/05/2011 at 22:09 Kismet says:
Next target: Sony DADC SecuROM servers?
(no credit cards but you can always hold software hostage and ask a ransom)
02/05/2011 at 22:14 dethtoll says:
Boy, what a shame.
02/05/2011 at 22:14 Gassalasca says:
He was a boy she was a girl
can I make it anymore obvious?
02/05/2011 at 22:16 frenz0rz says:
Avril Lavigne in my RPS?!
02/05/2011 at 22:22 Gassalasca says:
Inspired by Mr Gillen’s inspired analysis of the song.
02/05/2011 at 22:26 Wulf says:
You bet, dawg.
02/05/2011 at 23:19 wazups2x says:
He was a punk,she did ballet
What more can I say? Boy!
02/05/2011 at 22:15 Cooper says:
I’m not a boy, not yet a woman
03/05/2011 at 08:05 P7uen says:
Boy, I feel like a woman (dun dunnn dun dun dun DUN DUN!)
02/05/2011 at 22:17 Lambchops says:
Boi, I’m glad I don’t spell like Avril Lavigne.
02/05/2011 at 23:00 Kaira- says:
Boy are you a h8rboy
02/05/2011 at 23:33 stahlwerk says:
Y complic8 things, boi?
02/05/2011 at 22:45 Urthman says:
These are still dominoes falling as a result of Sony turning off Linux on the PS3, isn’t it?
Has a company ever before been so badly burned from one decision to screw a handful of their customers?
02/05/2011 at 22:57 Pointless Puppies says:
Yes, because the ONLY reason why Sony took out OtherOS was to screw a handful of consumers. But of course.
02/05/2011 at 23:04 Ricc says:
The data of millions of PSN users is worth a whole lot of money. This didn’t happen because of a few guys’ sense of entitlement. It happened because there was a vulnerability and they managed to profit off it.
02/05/2011 at 23:05 Tei says:
We don’t really know anything. Maybe this is organized by crackers motivated by profit, and not anything political.
Anyway.. It was the dirty tactics against GeoHot the most infuriating thing. … What Sony did was “political persecution” against this dude, and everyone on this class. Touching a sensible nerve, and a important one. The right to modify things is about the most important thing that motivate hackers of any type. Even if theres any hacker in the world NOT motivated by the idea of modifying things, the tactics that Sony used to make GeoHot looks bad are enough to make angry any Human Being.
How is this important for some people? about has much as religion for most normal people. I know I added Sony in my KOS list for this.
Personally, I think the best idea is to avoid buying a PS3, if you want to install Linux. But I support the people that would want to modify PS3 to install anything on it (even windows). If you attack any hacker doing this, you attack all of us.
03/05/2011 at 03:26 patstew says:
Another possible motivation for this hack is that Sony gave 1/3rd of the staff at Sony online a P45 one month before all these hacks happened, ie the hacks were at roughly the same time as those people were leaving….
03/05/2011 at 09:33 Urthman says:
I didn’t mean the motivation for this attack was revenge for turning off Linux support. I meant that the attack was made possible by the security holes cracked open by the Linux hackers reclaiming the functionality they’d paid for when they bought their PS3 units.
03/05/2011 at 17:14 jalf says:
Maybe, maybe not. As far as I know, there’s no evidence that the hack was originated from a PS3, or used information uncovered in the PS3 hack.
02/05/2011 at 22:48 Clockwork Peanut says:
Boyd.
02/05/2011 at 23:00 MythArcana says:
Yet more reasons to stay away from consoles…like I need another one.
02/05/2011 at 23:03 Nick says:
this effects PC customers.
02/05/2011 at 23:21 Bhazor says:
Well its true I guess. No one has ever been able to hack a PC.
Never ever.
02/05/2011 at 23:31 stahlwerk says:
Good thing no one prefers a single online game store / drm / cloud service to the point of de facto monopole, that would never happen on the PC.
03/05/2011 at 09:26 vani77a says:
why hello there!
http://www.steampowered.com
02/05/2011 at 23:25 stahlwerk says:
Boy we can do much more together
Better get a life get a life get a life get a life
02/05/2011 at 23:47 liance says:
(It’s not so impossible.)
(I browsed the entire comments thread if just to see I wasn’t the only person with that ridiculous song stuck in my head.)
03/05/2011 at 00:10 stahlwerk says:
Ridiculous? Nay, majestic!
(looking forward to seeing Sufjan live on Friday, yay!)
03/05/2011 at 00:18 Moraven says:
Ars reports SOE was hacked and personal info, along with old CC data was taken.
03/05/2011 at 00:28 Unaco says:
I’m going to hazard a guess and say that the security of the entirety of Sony’s Online presence was handled by the actors from NCIS.
03/05/2011 at 02:58 IckyThump says:
And when they were hacking into the server it probably looked something like this: http://hackertyper.net/
03/05/2011 at 00:28 Tei says:
Old men
03/05/2011 at 01:31 utharda says:
Don’t make me Gibbs you.
03/05/2011 at 10:16 iamseb says:
This old man loves that “Gibbs” is catching on as a verb.
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03/05/2011 at 06:02 rayne117 says:
Lookie there; that is one of them dirty, rotting, lazy spams! Let’s get ‘em boys!
03/05/2011 at 06:27 JackShandy says:
You can’t win. You know that, don’t you? It doesn’t matter if you whip us, you’ll still be where you were before, at the bottom. And we’ll still be the lucky ones at the top with all the breaks. It doesn’t matter. Readers will still be Readers and Spams will still be Spams. It doesn’t matter.
03/05/2011 at 06:53 tomeoftom says:
Right, boy.
-Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox
03/05/2011 at 13:42 Fred Wester CEO of Paradox says:
Boy, who are you?
03/05/2011 at 07:46 Dominic White says:
Well, so much for it being just a precaution:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6311008.html
Another ~25 million sets of personal details stolen, including credit card details. Ffffffuuuuuu—–
03/05/2011 at 09:24 tomeoftom says:
Thanks, Sony.
Thony.
03/05/2011 at 09:40 Icarus says:
*clap*
*clap*
*clap*
Boy am I glad my slow-clap processor made it into this thing.
03/05/2011 at 08:24 Jp1138 says:
Well, it seems this guys may have got my old credit card details among other things, being Spanish and one the two guys that played Galaxies some years ago… the card expired and I no longer play Galaxies, but it doesn´t make me feel better…
03/05/2011 at 08:51 patricij says:
Boyo, would you kindly UNhack the PSN network? *fixed*
03/05/2011 at 09:33 Cheese says:
GIRL! AHA!
Boy, am I glad I didn’t subscribe to planetside all those years ago.
03/05/2011 at 09:52 The Pink Ninja says:
But but but Planetside 2! :(
03/05/2011 at 10:02 GameOverMan says:
Boy, you’re an alien. Your touch so foreign.
03/05/2011 at 12:19 JackShandy says:
Hey now, boy, let’s not be xenophobic.
03/05/2011 at 11:53 sneetch says:
Boy, am I glad they had to courtesy to email me to let me know the haxxors have my details… oh wait, they still haven’t.
I mean, I obviously know but how many others are oblivious? HOW MANY!?!?!!!1
03/05/2011 at 12:35 skurmedel says:
They sent me an email of “regret”, like three days after the news broke. Which I guess is more than a week after PSN got rubbished.
04/05/2011 at 08:44 Hematite says:
I got a form letter too – strange, pretty sure I never gave them my CC number although I may have made a free account for some reason.
More worryingly, my gender is among the items that may have been stolen. ulp.
03/05/2011 at 12:27 lunarplasma says:
Boy, do I hope that they’re sure that it’s only an outdated credit card database that was haxx0rz’d.
03/05/2011 at 16:05 dogsolitude_uk says:
Man, am I glad I spent that £300 on stuff for the house, a drill and a toolkit rather than a PS3.
Gonna make me some holes in the wall. Yep, just a lazy, hole-drilling afternoon…
03/05/2011 at 16:17 Myros says:
Boy – cot Sony.
03/05/2011 at 16:42 Tei says:
Champ, this rocks bands!
04/05/2011 at 02:54 pipman3000 says:
alright which one of you did it.