Sony Online Entertainment Services Follow PSN Down

nam37 writes "Sony Online Entertainment's various services seem to be down and a message on the official site does not give much information on the particulars. According to a short post on the site, the services were taken down after an investigation revealed a deeper 'intrusion' than expected at first. This is the first we have heard that Sony's MMORPG arm had some sort of security breach. This could be part of Sony's plans to beef up security for the PlayStation Network, but this message seems to indicate that something more serious going on."

Sony email

[symes]

I received an email yesterday evening from Sony (presumably) to say that all the info I had given them might have been accessed. Funny thing is, although I have a PS3 I've never signed up to PSN, and would certainly not have provided the email address that I received the email on. I have, however, given sony my details when registering Sony products, warranties and so on. So I'm thinking that either that email from Sony was a scam, but there was no real scam element to it, or there is something a lot more serious going on. Maybe I'm paranoid.

Vigilante Justice

[mlwmohawk]

I'm sure no one believes that this is not an example of vigilante justice being played out against Sony. This is deeply concerning.

As police, lawmakers, judges, and governments become more and more puppets of corporate interests at the expense of the rights of citizens, I fear that vigilante justice will be the only avenue through which to seek justice. The basis of a working society is a working justice system. If citizens can not find justice officially, then they will find it unofficially.

I am reminded of a quote from "Young Frankenstein" "A riot is an ugly thing, and I think it is just about time we had one."

Not surprising

[j1976]

I have gotten my SOE account "hacked" (using SOE's terms). So has a close friend, and several other people I know of. Ok, if it had only been me I would have assumed it was an isolated incident even though I can't even begin to guess how my password got out in the wild. When this many people got their accounts taken over in such a limited time, I do no longer believe this was a problem on my side. However, trying to get anything other than "update your antivirus" out of the SOE customer support is an exercise in futility.

My qualified guess is that the recent security breaches aren't in any way exceptions: Most likely Sony/SOE have had security problems for several months now and have tried to keep a lid on it. But as said, that's just my guess.

Re:Vigilante Justice

[ElectricTurtle]

I think you might want to reexamine the history of high-profile robberies. People like Bonnie and Clyde or D. B. Cooper are romanticized, aggrandized, and sometimes in some circles elevated even to folk heroes. So long as it doesn't personally affect them, people frequently think that daring acts, even crimes, are admirable. Human nature can take some interesting twists.

Re:Vigilante Justice

[mlwmohawk]

Sony pissed off a lot of geeks, many of whom are smart and amoral

I think it is too easy to dismiss hackers as "amoral." I think very much it it probably not the case. I think hackers probably consider themselves as very "moral."

The problem with morality is that it is a subjective term.

Many months ago

[__aaqvdr516]

A few months ago my Station account was hacked. I had not used it in around 5 years. On that day my SWG account was reactivated with a monthly subscription using a credit card with my name on the account. The credit card had an address listed in a state I've never lived in. I saw the same story in forum threads when I was looking for information on how this happened.

I'm betting that they've been testing the water with the accounts they scraped for months.