Sony’s online game network hacked yet again

Lee Bell
October 12, 2011
1 Comment
playstation-network

The Playstation Network: where safety is paramount

Sony has yet again fell victim to the wit of computer hackers who broke into the company’s PlayStation gaming network last night.  The breach saw crooked cyber swindlers testing a massive set of sign-in and password attempts against Sony’s network database. Sony is keen to defend itself saying that most of these attempts failed. Nevertheless the attack still managed to penetrate 93,000 accounts.

As it’s now the third violation in six months – it’s about time Sony got their act together. Their PlayStation Network and sister network Sony Online Entertainment went down for several weeks in May earlier this year due to a similar security breach by those virtual-imposters.

What did Sony have to say for themselves this time? With another round of pathetic excuses, their newly hired chief information security officer, Philip Reitinger, tried to justify himself on the PlayStation Blog. He said that Sony has temporarily blocked the accounts that were hacked and assured users that only a small fraction of these accounts saw activity before they were locked down by Sony. What he did fail to mention, however, was why it was able to happen again after it was only May that saw Sony users as victims of the biggest security breach in gaming history.

As a “preventative measure” he said: “We are requiring secure password resets for those PSN/SEN accounts that had both a sign-in ID and password match through this attempt. If you are in the small group of PSN/SEN users who may have been affected, you will receive an email from us at the address associated with your account that will prompt you to reset your password.”

Yes, because a password reset is the answer to all our hacker-free dreams. Nonetheless, he went on: “We want to take this opportunity to remind our consumers of the importance of having a strong password and username/password combination that is not associated with other online services or sites.

“We encourage you to choose unique, hard-to-guess passwords and always look for unusual activity in your account.”

When will Sony realise a password reset just isn’t enough to keep its fearful online gaming network happy? With the attack being the third in the last year, we’re sure it’s only a matter of time before customers lose their trust in the company all together.

If you have any further information related to this story that you would like to share with us privately please click here.

Can't get enough CalvinAyre.com? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook, then you'll never miss out on the latest gaming industry news.

Share
Tags: Article, playstation, Sony
Views and opinions expressed are those of the Author and do not necessarily reflect those of CalvinAyre.com