Have
you ever wondered about your game console ever being hacked? Well Sony PlayStation suffered a massive
breach in April 2011. The online network
led to a theft of names, credit card data and addresses, belonging to 77million
users. It was one of the largest
security break-ins ever.
The unauthorized person obtained people’s names, email
addresses, usernames, passwords, birth dates, security questions and more. It took Sony seven days after the information
was stolen to tell the public what was going on. After the public was notified the PlayStation
network was shutdown, preventing owners from buying, downloading games and
playing with others online. Not playing
online for a week was very tough for some users, especially playing games like
modern warfare when interacting with others was more enjoyable then playing by
your self. Parents that had established
accounts for their children might also had their data exposed. How could something like this happen? Its crazy to think that our personal information
is not safe anymore and anybody can take and abuse it. After Sony alerted the public they never
mentioned how the data was compromised, so you could wonder how the hacker used
all the information that he or she received.
Sony hired a security firm to investigate to see what really
happened. The company suspects that the
data was hacked between April 17th and April 19th. Sony thinks the hacker probably hacked into
an administrator’s computer who had contact with all the personal information
and put a virus into their email message.
The person clicked on the message and the virus went into the message
and got downloaded into that person’s computer.
Then they started taking files of costumer’s information. For a precaution Sony told its users to place
fraud alerts on their credit card accounts just to be safe. Honesty the credit cards are not the most
valuable information the hackers could of took because you can easily replace
your card with another. John Abell, New
York bureau chief of wired.com has said the most valuable information that the
hacker could take is e-mail addresses.
Have you ever received those emails where you won a prize or somebody
offers you a job, or a bank you never heard of claiming somebody has taken
money out of your account? And when you click on it, it shows random stuff like
a different language or tries to get information out of you? These emails are
tricking you and only putting viruses on your computer. Those who had their information exposed to
the hackers are probably getting emails from them claiming to be Sony, always
be cautious when looking through emails.
If something looks suspicious don’t open it.
The
PlayStation franchise has been a steady enterprise even though video games and
hardware sales have declined around the world but it is still a great product
for Sony especially when they are coming up with new technically each year. They had a downfall, but it only made the
company much stronger. Other companies
in the world can learn from them and see the mistakes they did, to make their
companies more secure.
more information, check out this article a guy in Alabama is suing Sony.http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20057921-260.html
sources:
I remember this happening. My boyfriend was really angry because he couldn't play online, ha. Frankly I wasn't that concerned about my personal information getting out. The group that hacked them is the group named "Anonymous". If I remember correctly, the hack was a personal attack against Sony for a lawsuit that had against a member? Or something of the sort. The amount of money they lost due to the hack is a large amount. I have to say if I had a personal vendetta against a company/person you hit them where it hurts, and they certainly did. They cost Sony to lose out on money, and also called the question of how safe it was to stay with Sony as consumers. That being said, I do agree that our information is far from safe on the internet.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading about this,that hacker group Anonymous is really interesting. They seem to be politically motivated instead of monetarily like most hacker groups.
ReplyDeleteTwo of my good friends own PS3's and where a little concerned about their personal information because they had used credit cards on the online system. Hypothetically, those hackers could steal money from some of my friends. Big gaff for Sony who should be doing more to protect their subscribers personal information.
I do not have a ps3 but I remember this incident and was grateful to have a xbox but I know that the group Anonymous did this because they strongly believe that the people who purchased ps3's should be able to modify their console to fit their needs. One user was sued for modifying his PlayStation 3.
ReplyDeleteThat is crazy! I have a PS3, but I don't use it to play online. I can't stand the thought of something like that happening to me. I just wouldn't want my credit card information and everything saved in their network. Also, with those fake e-mails, everyone should know not to click on those kind of things. When I first got an e-mail account, my parents made sure that I knew that there were those kind of people out there who would try to trick me.
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