PSN Hack Update: Stolen Information Detailed, Partly Up Within A Week

[Projectjustice]

Update on PlayStation Network and Qriocity

Thank you for your patience while we work to resolve the current outage of PlayStation Network & Qriocity services. We are currently working to send a similar message to the one below via email to all of our registered account holders regarding a compromise of personal information as a result of an illegal intrusion on our systems. These malicious actions have also had an impact on your ability to enjoy the services provided by PlayStation Network and Qriocity including online gaming and online access to music, movies, sports and TV shows. We have a clear path to have PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems back online, and expect to restore some services within a week.

We?re working day and night to ensure it is done as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and feedback.

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 intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:
Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;
Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and
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, zip), 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 at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution 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 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 reports. We are providing the following information for those who wish to consider it:

U.S. residents are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit bureaus. To order your free credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call toll-free (877) 322-8228.

We have also provided names and contact information for the three major U.S. credit bureaus below. At no charge, U.S. residents can have these credit bureaus place a ?fraud alert? on your file that alerts creditors to take additional steps to verify your identity prior to granting credit in your name. This service can make it more difficult for someone to get credit in your name. Note, however, that because it tells creditors to follow certain procedures to protect you, it also may delay your ability to obtain credit while the agency verifies your identity. As soon as one credit bureau confirms your fraud alert, the others are notified to place fraud alerts on your file. Should you wish to place a fraud alert, or should you have any questions regarding your credit report, please contact any one of the agencies listed below.

Experian: 888-397-3742; www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
Equifax: 800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
TransUnion: 800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790

You may wish to visit the web site of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission at Deter. Detect. Defend. Avoid ID Theft or reach the FTC at 1-877-382-4357 or 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580 for further information about how to protect yourself from identity theft. Your state Attorney General may also have advice on preventing identity theft, and you should report instances of known or suspected identity theft to law enforcement, your State Attorney General, and the FTC. For North Carolina residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 9001 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-9001; telephone (877) 566-7226; or NCDOJ. For Maryland residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 200 St. Paul Place, 16th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202; telephone: (888) 743-0023; or Maryland Attorney General - Home Page.

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 1-800-345-7669 should you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,
Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment

Update on PlayStation Network and Qriocity ? PlayStation Blog

Official PlayStation website: Help & Support

Giving you PSN users a heads up! Cancel that Credit Card fast and start changing passwords!!!

[SodaPOP]

'Cept you can’t change your password till after the service is brought back up. :c

[CI581]

I was going to say the same thing.

[Projectjustice]

Change your passwords to other emails, accounts or services if you use the same password as your PSN account. This is a common practice.

[Moonchilde]

Would be nice if they had a list we could check to see if our account was compromised.

[Projectjustice]

Would be nice if they had a list we could check to see if our account was compromised.

They are claiming that all accounts have been compromised.

[Moonchilde]

Bah, guess it’s time to change all my passwords just to be safe. PSN had a different one but still… what a huge headache.

[Solid_SRK]

for me personally i think your an idiot to use credit cards on psn, i use playstation cards which you can purchase at your gameshop… even before this happened my original account was hacked by some nerd but it didn’t affect me much because i used and still do use fake name and address y? because my frikin house is more secure than this network… if u have to make new account what are trophys anyway compared to privacy ???

[Johnick]

[Solid_SRK]

http://i492.photobucket.com/albums/rr282/Johnick/SonyIsntGoodWithComputers.gif

HAAAAAAAAA LOVE IT, airplane great movie… makes u think the sony staff are acting the same way…SHIRLY!!!

[J-Nav]

**Questions and answers regarding PlayStation®Network/Qriocity Outage

PSN/Qriocity Network Outage FAQs**
**

1. When did the PSN/Qriocity become unavailable?**
   PSN/Qriocity services have not been available since April 20 (US time) in all regions.

2. Why did the PSN/Qriocity become unavailable?
An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services.

3. Why was Sony not prepared for a compromise of its network?
We are currently conducting a thorough investigation of the situation. Since this is an overall security related issue, we cannot comment further at this time.

4. Is the attack by ?Anonymous? or another party?
We are currently conducting a thorough investigation of the situation. Since this is an overall security related issue, we cannot comment further at this time.

5. Why is it taking so long to restore network services?
As soon as we learned of this issue, we temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services in order to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services. Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure. Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.

6. How serious is this compromise? How will Sony prevent this from happening again?
Because there is an on-going investigation we cannot comment further at this time, but we are working to restore and maintain and strengthen the services, including incorporating additional countermeasures to ward against future intrusions.

7. When will service be restored?
We have a clear path to have PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems back online, and expect to restore some services within a week.

We will keep the service down to allow us to conduct a thorough investigation to ensure smooth operation of our network services when they return; we are working hard to resume the services as soon as we can be reasonably assured our security concerns have been addressed.

8. Did SOE experience an attack due to the same reason?
SOE?s services are currently available, but they did experience a service interruption due to an external attack. An investigation is ongoing.

9. Have you had such a long PSN/Qriocity service termination like this one in the past?
No.

10. Does PSN/Qriocity get attacked very often?
We cannot make any comments regarding this matter at this time.

11. I want my money back (subscription fee, content) since the PSN/Qriocity was not available.
While we are still assessing the impact of this incident, we recognize that this may have had financial impact on our loyal customers. We are currently reviewing options and will update you when the service is restored.

12. There seems to be some games that cannot be played even offline?
Some games may require access to PSN for trophy sync, security checks or other network functionality and therefore cannot be played offline.

13. Why are Sony Online Entertainment services available while PSN and Qriocity are still down and you (SCE/Sony) are not able to even tell us when it will come back again?
As our investigation in this matter is ongoing, we cannot comment further on this matter.

14. What personally identifying information do you suspect has been compromised?
Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information provided by PlayStation Network/Qriocity account holders: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birth date, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password, login, and handle/PSN online ID. Other profile data may also have been obtained, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip). If an account holder has authorized a sub-account for a dependent, the same data with respect to that dependent may have been obtained. If an account holder provided credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, it is possible that the credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may also have been obtained.

15. How will I know if my personal information has been compromised?
We have provided notices to consumers at the email addresses associated with their PlayStation Network/Qriocity accounts. You may also visit Support - PlayStation.com and Qriocity - Home for notices regarding this issue. In addition, we have taken steps to disseminate information regarding this issue to media outlets so that consumers are informed. To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant to review your credit card account statements and to monitor your credit reports.

16. What steps have you taken to investigate this compromise?
We have engaged an outside, recognized security firm to investigate this incident and to assist us in our ongoing efforts to protect your personally identifiable information.

17. I got an email from you asking for my PSN/Qriocity sign-in ID and password. Is it really you asking for this information?
Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking.

18. What should I do to avoid having my personal information compromised?
For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, postal mail or other 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 number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. Additionally, if you use the same user name or password for your PlayStation Network or Qriocity service account for other

19. Why did Sony wait until now to tell PSN users that their personal information may have been compromised?
The nature of the intrusion required that we undertake an extensive and thorough investigation of the matter, which took considerable effort and time. We needed to make sure that we knew and understood the facts before providing the appropriate notice to PlayStation Network users.

PlayStation® Knowledge Center | Support - PlayStation.com

[G0F0RBR0KE]

I will pin this topic for those who are concerned about the situation. Thank you for your understanding and enjoy offline gaming/local gaming.

[mowr]

for me personally i think your an idiot to use credit cards on psn

Fuck you too bro.

[Solid_SRK]

Fuck you too bro.

im not your bro… your obviously a dumb ass credit card user, shame for you chump

[Projectjustice]

im not your bro… your obviously a dumb ass credit card user, shame for you chump

I think you are going overboard with this. Just because you decide not to use your credit card on PSN doesnt mean you shouldnt. Sony is a multi-billion dollar corporation that should have better security. Ive had my CC info on XBL for 8 years and I have never had anything like this happen to me. Am I an idiot for doing so as well?

[Projectjustice]

http://i492.photobucket.com/albums/rr282/Johnick/SonyIsntGoodWithComputers.gif

Thats pretty dam funny but this one takes the cake.

[Z.A.P]

PSN is down?and has been for a week now.

According to the Official Playstation Blog PSN has been taken down by Sony themselves because?.

?An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services.? ? Patrick Seybold

Now it is true that PSN has in fact been ?Hacked? / ?Attacked? but not in the fashion that Sony is spinning this story.

First of all customer information has not been compromised. No one has your credit card #. This is a bullshit PR story to make them look good. That?s right; Sony telling the public that their personal information has been compromised is actually a good thing for them in the end.

Why you ask? B/c it communicates to the customer that we?ve shut down PSN to protect your personal information, we care about you, blah blah blah.

Telling the public that customer information has been stolen is way better than the truth, and the truth of the matter is?. Sony is protecting their bottom line?$$$.

Last Tuesday, April 19th 2011 I was on PSN trying to play MK online and buy a few things on the PS Store. When I tried to log on to PSN, I received strange error message that I?d never seen before. I can?t remember the exact verbiage but it displayed a message something to the effect of?

?Adding funds to your wallet has been denied?

Again this was when I was initially trying to log onto PSN not the store, which means to me that funds were automatically trying to make their way onto my PSN wallet.

This leads me to the REAL reason why PSN is down and furthermore why Sony is going after various Hackers like Geohot that design homebrew and custom firmware.

**Last week custom firmware was released that allows you to turn your Playstation into a Developer Console. Once your Playstation is recognized as a developer console you can download ANY game you want from PSN completely for FREE. **

Sony and several other companies were loosing money, and thus they took PSN down to prevent gamers w/ custom firmware on their Playstations to download free games. As a company Sony does not want to admit the real reason that they took PSN down is b/c they were loosing money.

So they made up some bullshit story about compromised accounts. Once again Sony does not want to tell us the whole story. They are full of shit, and have a PR team and spin doctors for this very reason. So believe the ?Official Story? if you want, but this is real talk.

[Projectjustice]

PSN is down?and has been for a week now.

According to the Official Playstation Blog PSN has been taken down by Sony themselves because?.

?An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services.? ? Patrick Seybold

Now it is true that PSN has in fact been ?Hacked? / ?Attacked? but not in the fashion that Sony is spinning this story.

**First of all customer information has not been compromised. No one has your credit card #. This is a bullshit PR story to make them look good. That?s right; Sony telling the public that their personal information has been compromised is actually a good thing for them in the end. **

Why you ask? B/c it communicates to the customer that we?ve shut down PSN to protect your personal information, we care about you, blah blah blah.

Telling the public that customer information has been stolen is way better than the truth, and the truth of the matter is?. Sony is protecting their bottom line?$$$.

Last Tuesday, April 19th 2011 I was on PSN trying to play MK online and buy a few things on the PS Store. When I tried to log on to PSN, I received strange error message that I?d never seen before. I can?t remember the exact verbiage but it displayed a message something to the effect of?

?Adding funds to your wallet has been denied?

Again this was when I was initially trying to log onto PSN not the store, which means to me that funds were automatically trying to make their way onto my PSN wallet.

This leads me to the REAL reason why PSN is down and furthermore why Sony is going after various Hackers like Geohot that design homebrew and custom firmware.

Last week custom firmware was released that allows you to turn your Playstation into a Developer Console. Once your Playstation is recognized as a developer console you can download ANY game you want from PSN completely for FREE.

Sony and several other companies were loosing money, and thus they took PSN down to prevent gamers w/ custom firmware on their Playstations to download free games. As a company Sony does not want to admit the real reason that they took PSN down is b/c they were loosing money.

So they made up some bullshit story about compromised accounts. Once again Sony does not want to tell us the whole story. They are full of shit, and have a PR team and spin doctors for this very reason. So believe the ?Official Story? if you want, but this is real talk.

PSN Hack Update: FAQs in OP, Read before posting

Thats bullshit go to this link and tell the people that have noticed illegal transactions on their credit cards otherwise.

[Z.A.P]

That link that you sent does not display one post of someone reporting illegal transactions…Cool Story Bro.

[philcito]

just in case… i had to block my credit card and they have to replace my credit card number and the card itself. damn this.