Mark Braham: Blog

This article follows on from a previous post regarding the PlayStation Network (PSN), which can be found by clicking on this link.

For those PlayStation members who for whatever reason are yet to see this email, you will want to read the latest (and lets face it, long overdue) message direct from Sony:

Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer:

We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011,  certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized ntrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:
1)     Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;
2)     Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and
3)     Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by re-building our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.
We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable.
Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state/province, zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence that credit card data was taken at this time, we cannot rule out the possibility.  If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, to be on the safe side we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security, tax identification or similar number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking.  When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password.  Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them, as well.

To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant to review your account statements and to monitor your credit or similar types of reports.

We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of this incident, and we regret any inconvenience.  Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority.  Please contact us at www.eu.playstation.com/psnoutage should you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,
Sony Network Entertainment and Sony
Computer Entertainment Teams

Sony Network Entertainment Europe Limited
(formerly known as PlayStation Network Europe Limited) is a subsidiary of Sony
Computer Entertainment Europe Limited the data controller for PlayStation
Network/Qriocity personal data

Well. Not much that can be added to that is there.
Whenever you are asked to provide information online, think very carefully before hitting submit…. and don’t provide anything you are too concerned with loosing!

This article relates to the latest knowledge of the international hacking/attack of the PlayStation Network (PSN) – News Article link here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13192359

**UPDATE** There is a follow-up article available by clicking here.

Users of the above service have been advised by Sony that a large amount of their personal information (including payment details/history) may have been compromised and may now be available to 3^rd parties responsible for the hacking. PSN users are being recommended to change all passwords used on the service, all ‘secret questions’, and carefully monitor transactions on payment methods used on the service.

If you have any specific PSN concerns PlayStation Support can be contacted by clicking here.

While the above may be helpful for PSN users, the information below is intended as a more general update.

General advice/best practice for engaging with any online service provider:

• Where possible, do not use a payment method connected to your current account (or an account which has significant funds in it). Instead, look to use a separate bills/online payment account with minimal funds in it. This way if your account is compromised any financial loss will not be substantial.
• Do not use generic or shared passwords. Passwords should be unique to a particular service and not shared across several services.
• When setting up an online account and providing a ‘secret question’, make sure the question/answer are not details which can easily be guessed, or are known by others.
• When receiving emails / phone calls relating to online services, never give out security information if you can not 100% prove the authenticity of a contact. Most service providers will not ask for pecific passwords or confirmation of pin numbers, and instead have separate passcodes or words unrelated to the main account setup.
• Regularly check banking transactions and query any unknown purchases with your bank – most offer fraud protection and will return payments, but can only act when they are informed of the potential issue.
• If you use Internet Banking, ensure that your computer is regularly updated/patched, and that you have up to date anti-virus software.

Using the above best practice should minimise the potential of online fraud / account compromise issues.