According to Sony's Sr. Director, Corporate Communications & Social Media, Patrick Seybold an "unauthorized person" has obtained PlayStation Network Users' personal information, including name, address, password, login. According to the company, it's possible that credit card data has been accessed as well. In other words, things just went from a inconvenience to a potential catastrophe for millions of PlayStation 3 users.
"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."
Sony's full statement is under the cut.
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 92834-6790You may wish to visit the web site of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission at www.consumer.gov/idtheft 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 www.ncdoj.gov. For Maryland residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 200 St. Paul Place, 16th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202; telephone: (888) 743-0023; or www.oag.state.md.us.
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
We'll have more info as it develops.
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Comments
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phorn1234
i think that all the people who dis sony are wroung for that yea they could have better sicurity but stuff like this happens and it could happen to any xbl wii and pc
BMaS
i have a feeling there going to make us pay for Psn after this
fishnax
Gotta admit one guy hacking into PSN and screwing over 75million people is pretty impressive. And unlike all the microsoft fanboys bashing sony just because they're immature children, I'd like to say that I feel bad for sony users and I really hope this issue gets fixed.
fodderMonkey
Nice thing is credit card information is the least of things that I would be worried about thanks to this someone might have user's real names, address and date of birth.. identity theft gold mine right there alone.
megamonkey1998
these hackers should be tied up in a room and have to read hate mail for the rest of there lives!!
megamonkey1998
alright alright, everybody who owns a ps3 i have an idea. if they hack our cards and buy stuff with them, we still know what the card goes towards, so we know what they buy and we can get some info from this. whatever they buy shows up on our card info, so we know what there plan is. And if they all buy the same thing well then it could be a MASS CYBER-ROBBERY. WE CAN STILL MAKE THINGS RIGHT!!!. WE CAN PEICE THINGS TOGETHER AND SOLVE WHATEVER THESE BASTARDS ARE DOING!!!!! WE, NOT AS AN INDIVIDUAL BUT A FAMILY OF GAMERS, CAN STOP THIS. FROM LITTLE BIG PLANET, TO CALL OF DUTY. FROM ANGRY BIRD TO MOD-NATION RACERS SHALL TEAM UP, FOR ALL OF PLAYSTATION NETWORK AND FOR YOU, YOUR FRIENDS, AND YOUR FAMILY. WE SHALL STOP THIS!!! FOR HACKERS BEWARE FOR MILLIONS OF PSN USERS SHALL STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR WHAT WE DO, WHAT WE LOVE, WHAT WE BEIEVE IN!!!. FOR TODAY MARKS THE DAY OF THE GREAT CYBER-WAR!!!!. NOW WHOS WITH ME!!!!!!?????
Ambigous
Really, people are going to blame Sony, and Hackers, but in short the fault lies with YOU. You the consumer who grew up with the constant threat of hacking and credit card theft, you the consumer who KNEW there was a chance to have your information taken should something go awry. If you blame Sony or the Crackers {Yes Crackers are people who break security networks and steal Hackers just break code} then you obviously were one of the people who thought 'well it will never happen to me' and you were wrong, so sorry try again next time. I hear all the furor over this but is anyone legitimately doing anything if their info was stolen? Did you call Sony and try to get your funds back if there were fraud charges, no you probably started rioting.
As for the delay in telling the consumer base, what if they thought it was something and it turned into something else.. good crackers the ones who can do this stuff are hard to trace they take time and money to track down, did anyone even slightly consider it might have taken 3 days to confirm that this was indeed the case. That's not even accounting the time it takes to press release around the nation and the meetings that had to be taken to decide such a sensitive matter. You run a company and come out the SAME day as a company wide information theft and be "Well crap here it is" the fact that Sony took the time to handle the situation properly, investigate, and release a formal press release not some half baked OOPS twitter shows that Sony is being responsible and doing all the legally necessary actions.
If anyone here thinks Microsoft would have done anything different, may I remind you of the entirety of 2000 and the windows 2000/ME security breaks. Yeah random bad things happen but to blame the company who trusts their users not to pull this crap by fear of law, to blame the crackers who know that despite what they do they won't be caught, but the real blame lies with people who are too lazy to put their credit card information in for each purchase
{Give up Security for Ease of use and you shall have neither}
Cyborg093
People, this can happen to PC,Xbox, and clearly to sony. Crap happens. Better sooner than later. Sony learned from its mistakes and will look into this more. If i wanted to find a persons info i could. Not even threw a system. People should just stop hating on Sony for hackers that got threw. Nothing is perfect.
cowboyprestige101
when they find this user they should put him in the middle of a huge room and invite all us gamers who have been affected to take turns punching him in the face
NelsonDemifur
So now I have to check up and change all data on my PSN account? The plus is that I don't have a creditcard for whoever did this bull@*#$. The minus is now I have to hope nothing that was on there was looked at
dashizzel
It is truly amazing to me how 1 month ago everyone was furious at how Sony was trying to protect their selfs from security breaches that could be made from hackers who had access to the systems root key. Hundreds of comments saying" they were going to far in trying to protect their intellectual property" and "blah blah blah", now that the "hack" has been used for nefarious reasons ,as Sony believed it would, every one is mad that they didn't do enough. Seriously, if you complained that hackers have the right to open the systems that they brought and do with the SOFTWARE whatever they wish, stick you're foot down you're throat. This is not Sony's fault, they had a system they believed was safe and did what they could to keep it that way. you're fellow cheapskates are to blame for going out of their way to apprehend "free" games, personal information, and break a system. With that said, Sony is a billion dollar corporation, not your homeboys gas station or your aunty's shoppe, they need to do what they can to appease investors and turn profits, so if you expect them to call you up and say " hey buddy where having some trouble with security on our network sorry for the inconvenience heres a $100 hope were still bff's" then you sir or ma'am are an idiot.
yurh1ness
Think I'll just put this PS3 on Craigslist!!
RoxasTheSlayer
i have been with sony since the ps1 and from the time the ps2 first got internet access all the way up until now this is the first time i have seen a breach in security like this...just because a hacker came along who just so happened to be the one who had the ability to do such damage does not mean that sony is not doing its job..yes their security could have been better but so can so many other things in this world....
the same hacker could have hit microsoft just as hard but he just happened to have a certain disliking of sony...nothing in this world is perfect theres allways room for improvement thats where the constant updates and new systems come from...apparently after doing things they way that they were doing it for so long and succeeding maybe sony thought that their security was good enough...
but what people need to think about is not only the negative in the situation but the silver lining too...for example a breach like this will only make sony beef up their security even more which lowers the margin of error...notice i said LOWER not eliminate because even if they lover the margin it is still not impossible to get breached again..but the fact of the matter is the people are getting more security...also a big problem like this may make them address other issues that they diddnt consider to be a big deal......which further increases your experience with the company
what im basically trying to say here is that i feel for the people who have been affected by this but remember that good things can sprout from a tragedy you just have to look for them...so yes im a little pissed at sony too but i know that they will bounce back stronger from this and who knows maybe they will add some thing's to the PSN that will make you gaming experiences even better when hey are up and running again
RoxasTheSlayer
i have been with sony since the ps1 and from the time the ps2 first got internet access all the way up until now this is the first time i have seen a breach in security like this...just because a hacker came along who just so happened to be the one who had the ability to do such damage does not mean that sony is not doing its job..yes their security could have been better but so can so many other things in this world....
the same hacker could have hit microsoft just as hard but he just happened to have a certain disliking of sony...nothing in this world is perfect theres allways room for improvement thats where the constant updates and new systems come from...apparently after doing things they way that they were doing it for so long and succeeding maybe sony thought that their security was good enough...
but what people need to think about is not only the negative in the situation but the silver lining too...for example a breach like this will only make sony beef up their security even more which lowers the margin of error...notice i said LOWER not eliminate because even if they lover the margin it is still not impossible to get breached again..but the fact of the matter is the people are getting more security...also a big problem like this may make them address other issues that they diddnt consider to be a big deal......which further increases your experience with the company
what im basically trying to say here is that i feel for the people who have been affected by this but remember that good things can sprout from a tragedy you just have to look for them...so yes im a little pissed at sony too but i know that they will bounce back stronger from this and who knows maybe they will add some thing's to the PSN that will make you gaming experiences even better when they are up and running again
evilicecream2
at least microsoft dosent get hacked so we can play live and 360 better than ps3.
phorn1234
wish psn was back up
trialbyfire
in all honesty, everyone has the right to be irritated with sony's lack of security, but to completely dog on them is ridiculous. being a ps3 owner myself, im disappointed that this has happened but seriously lets take a look at the fact that as long as there is someone willing to try to do something, in this case hack the psn servers to get account info, it will happen and its just a matter of time. we also must point the finger at our selves, i mean if a hacker can put a virus into a power grid system of a country, like they did in iran a few months back, you are a fool to think that the psn or xbl or anything else for that matter that has your information is safe
Pazuzu98224
One thing this entire situation is doing is proving that junkbox fanboys are ignorant. They use it as a reason to attack and blame sony and dis the ps3 rather than being respectable and saying "Sorry your info was stolen."
PS: I own all of the systems since the PS/N64 generation and anyone that has tried the ps3 cannot possible like the 360 more unless they are only poor and jealous they don't have the ps3.
ShinjiEx
So this... is how it... ends for Sony :(
Dehnyen
CHecked my bank account this morning. Glad to see it's not any more rock bottom than it usually is haha. At this point, I don't even care how long it takes them to make things right. Portal 2 co-op doesn't seem so important right now after all of this.
Well, yeah maybe a little.........
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