12 October 2011 | Author: L Boyd Media Intern
Sony found its network once more under attack and has warned that 93,000 accounts on the PlayStation Network and SOE games service may be at risk.
The latest security incident, reported to have occurred between 7 and 10 October, involves information that may have been stolen from computers. The as-yet unknown hackers gained access to members' IDs and passwords, and there have been several attempts at unauthorised sign-ins.
Although not all 93,000 accounts have shown signs of suspicious activity, all potentially affected have been taken offline for the time being while Sony addresses the issue.
"Less than one tenth of one per cent ... may have been affected. There were approximately 93,000 accounts where the attempts succeeded in verifying those accounts' valid sign-in IDs and passwords, and we have temporarily locked these accounts.
"Only a small fraction of these 93,000 accounts showed additional activity prior to being locked. We are continuing to investigate the extent of unauthorized activity on any of these accounts," a statement from Sony said.
Sony assured users that their credit card details are not at risk and any affected accounts will be contacted by email and instructed to change their password.
This is the latest in a string of security lapses suffered by the Japanese company. The most significant Sony security breach happened in April of this year and made headlines across the world as the account details of 77 million PS3 users were accessed by hackers.
April's incident saw Sony taking the PlayStation network offline for 40 days whilst they fixed the problem.
Following this vast data breach, Sony attempted to regain customers' trust through numerous apologies and compensation packages. However, further security breaches have since cropped up with Sony Online Entertainment, Sony Pictures, Sony Ericsson and websites in Thailand and Indonesia.
While the perpetrators of the latest hacking remain at large, any trust Sony has regained over the past six months could once again be called into question by this latest attack.
Sony security breach suspends 93k on PlayStation Network
Sony found its network once more under attack and has warned that 93,000 accounts on the PlayStation Network and SOE games service may be at risk.The latest security incident, reported to have occurred between 7 and 10 October, involves information that may have been stolen from computers. The as-yet unknown hackers gained access to members' IDs and passwords, and there have been several attempts at unauthorised sign-ins.
Although not all 93,000 accounts have shown signs of suspicious activity, all potentially affected have been taken offline for the time being while Sony addresses the issue.
"Less than one tenth of one per cent ... may have been affected. There were approximately 93,000 accounts where the attempts succeeded in verifying those accounts' valid sign-in IDs and passwords, and we have temporarily locked these accounts.
"Only a small fraction of these 93,000 accounts showed additional activity prior to being locked. We are continuing to investigate the extent of unauthorized activity on any of these accounts," a statement from Sony said.
Sony assured users that their credit card details are not at risk and any affected accounts will be contacted by email and instructed to change their password.
This is the latest in a string of security lapses suffered by the Japanese company. The most significant Sony security breach happened in April of this year and made headlines across the world as the account details of 77 million PS3 users were accessed by hackers.
April's incident saw Sony taking the PlayStation network offline for 40 days whilst they fixed the problem.
Following this vast data breach, Sony attempted to regain customers' trust through numerous apologies and compensation packages. However, further security breaches have since cropped up with Sony Online Entertainment, Sony Pictures, Sony Ericsson and websites in Thailand and Indonesia.
While the perpetrators of the latest hacking remain at large, any trust Sony has regained over the past six months could once again be called into question by this latest attack.
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