Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer hack

[Illuminate]

To all the Playstation warriors out there:

SONY has shut down a second online video-game unit amid an expanding investigation of a computer hack that may have compromised the personal information of as many as 77 million users, the latest black eye for the Japanese technology giant. Sony Online Entertainment, a San Diego-based subsidiary that makes multiplayer role-playing games, said it temporarily shut down services yesterday amid concerns a hacker may have breached its security.
Two weeks ago, the company shut down its PlayStation Network, which lets gamers play against each other online, after it discovered a hacker had stolen names, birth dates and possibly credit-card numbers from the network.
Sony said the shutdown of Sony Online Entertainment, which hosts the popular EverQuest role-playing game, was prompted by an expansion of the initial investigation, not a separate attack.
"We temporarily took down SOE's services as part of our continued investigation into the external intrusion that occurred in April," said Michele Sturdivant, a Sony Online Entertainment spokeswoman. "This is not a second attack."

The Australian.

[picklemonkey]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

I'm going through some serious fn withdrawls with this PSN outage. I understand the need to take your services down for maintenance, but two weeks is ridiculous.

[Illuminate]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

Excuse my French, but this is fuckin ridiculous!
SONY....this is what shocks me. I mean fair enough if it was some small player, but SONY or should I say:

[TomTom]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

[..]but two weeks is ridiculous.[...]

The whole affair is ridiculous in my book. They got hacked and I assume, grabbing data from 77 millions registered users can't be done in a heartbeat but they realized it (correct me if I am wrong) two days later. I do not know how it was in other countries but in Germany, the 1st news made it to...drumwhirl...Facebook and Twitter. Facebook and Twitter are both shiny and trendy and lots of people have accounts on this platform but I don't lol. It took one day more to make it to mass media and then it was all over it but it took Sony a friggin week more till they finally contacted me via E-Mail.

Their first E-Mail was in English and included only hotlines and support options for US residents. I thought WTF. When I want to buy Games or play with friends from other countries outside Europe, Sony, cares a lot to make sure that I can only see content for my area but when they have to inform us about the biggest fuckup in their History, everybody is supposed to speak English suddenly? Two days later, the same E-Mail came in translated to German so all in all, it took them almost two weeks to contact me in a way I would have expected a day later after they got hacked.

What also went on my nerves was that I have read everywhere that people should change their passwords for the PSN in and it took me 20 minutes (including checking the manual lol) to find out that this is no given option until they put the Play Station Network online again. Global Players just SUCK and normally, everybody should get a new CC and forward the costs to Sony just like all their vendors should make them compensate for the losses. Why on Earth are they keeping even the credit card validation codes anyways? Keeping it till the transaction has cleared is fine but they are no fucking bank. Until they don't apply a Verified by Visa or other additional security systems, I will surely NOT buy in their Store anymore.

[Illuminate]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

^Amen.

You think their European operations would be the first to respond, but my god. This is simply not good enough.
77 million pissed off people.

Sony's going down...
von jdm über den Tisch gezogen werden

[picklemonkey]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

I just saw a a $19.95 charge for creditreport.com on my credit card that was tied to my Playstation.... I never got a credit report on Sunday.

[Illuminate]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

^dude, not cool...keep checking those statements.

[GregWhelan]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

Am I in a minority here? Really not that bothered about it. When it's back up I'll use it again. Until then I'll play solo games. And the credit card issue? Your card could get copied anywhere on earth really.

Had to laugh at some of the people on news reports 'This has disgusted me', 'This is shocking' etc. It's a game system FFS!

[i!!ustrious]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

playstation is much more hackable than microsoft's system

[picklemonkey]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

I'm using XLink to play Black Ops on the PSN with strangers. This thing works GREAT! Just install and run this program on a Windows PC. No plugging your PSN into your computer, crossover cables, custom configs on your playstation ,etc. It uses your computer's NIC in promiscuous mode to sniff your playstation's traffic and inject false packets so you can play on a different private PS3 network.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69s02spOSnk

[res0nat0r]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

^Sweet

Is the network STILL offline?

[picklemonkey]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

yes

[res0nat0r]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

damn. thats pretty bad.

[TomTom]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

Tried yesterday too again and laughed seeing it's still offline. Seems they have serious issues going way deeper than they tell us. For them, each day is a huge loss so I guess their CEO's are already biting their fingernails.

[picklemonkey]

Re: Sony shuts down another online game unit as expands investigation into computer h

They're starting to bring the network back up now, starting with the US, state by state

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/14/play-on-%E2%80%93-psn-restoration-begins-now/