Heads up for those with PS3s, some of your private info. may have been compromised.

[Daxter King]

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/...-and-qriocity/

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 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

So yeah, PSN was taken down by "an outside force" about a week ago, Sony is just now responding. This is really bad, not sure how big of an impact this will have yet.

[Nate]

This is shitty. I use that password for tonnes of websites.


Not OWF, before you guys get excited.

[DarkHoodness]

It's still not back up yet? What the hell did the hackers do to make the entire PS Network go offline for nearly an entire week and steal everyone's data? And how did a rich and powerful company like Sony cock up so badly with their security?

Makes me glad I don't use PSN. I'm hoping this will be a harsh lesson and that nothing bad comes from it.

[Nate]

It's still not back up yet? What the hell did the hackers do to make the entire PS Network go offline for nearly an entire week and steal everyone's data? And how did a rich and powerful company like Sony cock up so badly with their security?

I suspect that the downtime is less to do with what the hackers did and more to do with Sony wanting to a) investigate and b) protect their systems before putting them back online.

Oh, and remember that there's no such thing as an unhackable system.

[Phylum]

I don't even remember my PSN password. I just auto-login. I should get in contact with the hackers.

The downtime has been annoying me as I haven't had a chance to play Portal 2 online yet. I can't activate my bonus code yet, either, as that requires the PSN to be up. Now that they've said this, I'm prepared to be patient.

[Nate]

I'm not sure which email address I used to sign up. That would affect which subset of websites I would need to go and change the password. Unfortunately, I can't check which address it was until the PSN comes online again, giving the hackers that much more time to... uhhh... change my Facebook status. Or bid for things on Ebay.

[Alcar]

I hope my trophies are okay.

Alcar...

[MeechMunchie]

lol consoles fail

That said, it's only a matter of time before something like this happens to Steam. And Steam Guard is hardly inpenetrable.

[DarkHoodness]

That's what I'm worried about. They say they don't keep my card details but you can never really be sure.

[Hazel-Rah]

You know what works better than PSN? XBAND

[Crashpunk]

Thats pretty stupid.

i'm just gald i don't have a PS3 yet :/

[Nate]

I'm not going to cancel my credit card until more is known. For one thing, my bank will refund me if anything is purchased fraudulently. For another, unless Sony are absolute dipshits, they'll have encrypted the credit details. I don't know about other countries, but it's law in Australia that computer systems must have CC details encrypted so that not even admin users can view them. In general, they'll be encrypted with the bank (or credit card service)'s public key when the user first submits it and after that, Sony would only need to send the encrypted version to the bank/service when a transaction is performed.

[Hazel-Rah]

Yes! The "PSN welcome back program" is offering Infamous as a free game, way to go Sony!

[Daxter King]

You sheep.