*ren* PSN Down, Customer Info Compromised

[makattack]

The hysterics around the PSN breach have become incredibly hyperbolic.

I suspect you're saying the news media is "is rife with with hysterical hyperbole at a hyperbolic rate" -- so based on that... isn't that always the case?

Look at anything in the news now. President Obama of the US has released yet another copy of his birth certificate because people in the media are claiming he was born outside the USA.

At any rate, that's all off-topic. The point of the matter is that this is a serious breach. The most serious release of private consumer data that I know of in terms of scale. And I've been involved as a customer in at 3 such cases (Citibank, US Veterans Affairs, and Boston Globe) -- now, 4. And work at an organization that had to deal with this (someone going walk-about with a laptop), so I'm especially sensitive to this. Which also explains my taking rather draconian steps with safe-guarding my accounts (regular password changes with no two sites using the same passwords and challenge questions) and also monitoring CC transactions on the one CC used exclusively for online purchases (I don't even bring it with me in my wallet.)

 

[Arwin]

They likely only use CVC for validation of the credentials provided on first use, never storing it or requiring it again for further transacions.

Yes, that is at least my experience, including asking it each time you activate your account on a new PS3.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Pretty sure the CC data is safe. It sounds like they didn't get it, and if they did it is safeguarded to an extent. I'm more interested in hearing about the their "personal" table in the database, not having any encryption at all. If that included the login ID, password, email address and security question answer, then that is a serious problem.

I think if Sony had come out after one or two days and said they thought someone accessed their network in an attempt to steal personal information, so safeguard by doing x, then they would have been in a much better position, and been a much greater help to their customers. If they'd found nothing was taken, they could have issued another statement saying the data was safe after further investigation. With the situation they have know, they would have been a lot more proactive and people would be a lot less pissed off. Someone may have had my unencrypted personal data for nearly a week without my knowing.

I really don't believe that it took them six days to figure out what the hackers might have been after. I can believe it took them six days to figure out for certain that data had been compromised. The situation was mishandled badly.

 

[Carl B]

I don't care what they knew. As soon as a company that has my personal info suspects that my info might have been accessed by an unknown party I want to be notified. This is the standard I hold any company I provide this type of information to and this is the standard I will continue to hold them to, regardless of what I think about their products/services.

There's a lot of FUD being spread, no doubt. That doesn't make all of the criticisms invalid. Sony (and every other company that holds similar information) needs to look at this debacle and learn from it. They did a lot of things wrong. One of the primary ones is that their response put their corporate welfare above the welfare of their customers. In this area, that's unacceptable.

I mean seriously, at the minimum. Certainly some people may have reason to think Sony is being unfairly piled up on and all the usual generic hate and attacks are being trod out - and I think they'd be right in that regard - but it's a whole 'nother thing to actually be defending Sony and their response to this issue, which has been, frankly, the height of incompetence. People defending Sony's stated need to have multiple days to evaluate the damage while at the same time decrying hyperbole and assumptions elsewhere are looking the wrong way IMO. Because to me, there can be no other logical conclusion than Sony probably had a firm understanding of the *potential* damage within a day or two's length, tops, and spent the next several days fretting about how they would spin that message. The communication should have been immediate, and it should have been full disclosure. And for f*ck's sake they need to expand their mouthpiece efforts on this beyond their official blog; they should be hitting all the financial networks for interviews, making people proactively available to all the major gaming and tech sites, and really showing that they are on top of this. Because as it stands now, I don't even know when I'll be able to log in again to the network itself.

I'm not going to be canceling cards, boycotting products, or in really any way changing my behavior... save to possibly switch up some passwords... but I mean, that is a world away from saying I am not aggravated. This whole thing is quite frustrating, and then Sony's (non)response is just the head-shaking salt in the wounds. But I mean, it's totally how I expect them to handle it at the same time: badly. That's just been the level of their PR skills these last couple of years.

 

[Gerry]

I don't for a second believe that Sony doesn't encrypt the account password as well. It'd be insane not to. Sony aren't idiots so I'm sure they will have been encrypted. That doesn't mean they're safe of course.

They've certainly botched this up from a PR persepctive if nothing else. I betcha MS are laughing their socks off (whilst checking that their own security is up to the task no doubt).

 

[djskribbles]

So I just checked my e-mail this morning and I see someone I know responded to an e-mail that I apparently sent out. I checked my sent box and it shows that I sent spam mail out to everyone in my contacts list.

Does this sound like it could be related, or is it possible I have a virus on one of my computers?

 

[KongRudi]

has any hackers that pull off intrusion of the similar scale actually got away and never got caught before?

The main problems isn't allways finding the people, the ones who usually do this for a living, is for the most part well known by financial police agencies and security firms.
They works for the most part out of eastern Europe and Asia, and corruption is also a problem there, in addition to more brutal crimes.

According to those agencies and firms, in the end it costs alot more to bring those people into a court of law, rather than just cover the victims losses, and silently fix the problems if they can.

My creditcard has been stolen from before, but I were never informed by Amazon (wich I assume is where it were stolen from, since it were allmost the only place I had used that card), or heard of any measures beeing taken.
My bank said that my money were safe, Visa would replace any lost money, and I would get a new credit card. Personally, I think Sony could have done the same.

But Sony isn't a normal company, they are a crazy company.
They closed shop for a week, and counting. This is insane in terms of lost revenues, but when they come saying that they as a company have been sabotaged for several hundreds of million dollars, it will end up as a very high profile important investigation, compared to someone has stolen a few thousands dollars from us.

Many police agencies will be watching this, and for the hackers/mafia will find it really expensive to pay off whatever officials who could/would protect them, to want to involve themselves in a case this hot, rather than the normal small amounts wich actually gets stolen/skimmed.

And even if they don't catch them, they will most likely have sent a message, that there is plenty of easier targets out there.
Well, that's my personal theory anyway.

 

[Carl B]

...Sony aren't idiots...

Where in the world are the supports for this theory?

 

[Statix]

Where in the world are the supports for this theory?

Perhaps it'd be better rephrased as "Sony is no more idiotic than Microsoft is." No network or system is 100% secure, and I'm sure Microsoft's servers and services (as well as their OS) have their share of security holes contained therein, open to potential attacks in the future.

I have a hard time believing passwords aren't encrypted as well, but if they really are unencrypted, then that's a massive screw-up on Sony's part (and I'll have a headache trying to sort out in my mind which important sites of mine are using the same password). We need a straight answer on whether this "unencrypted personal data" included passwords or not.

 

[Carl B]

It's not the back-end security I was referring to with my comment though... I mean honestly, what are some moves by Sony in the past several years you would equate with being deft or intelligent? On the other hand, I can list misstep-a-million. To say nothing, again, of my oft repeated "worst public relations in the industry" label. The problem is Sony *really* comes off as ivory tower in the way they communicate with the outside world. Just changing the culture and manner and tone in which they get their message out would make a world of (positive) difference for them. But after years and years of this being an issue for them, still nothing changes. That's not Sony "not being idiots" in my book.

 

[Statix]

I don't disagree that Sony as a corporation has made plenty of mistakes and missteps in the past, but I also don't see how they are any worse or different than many other big companies, such as Nintendo or Microsoft. For every poor decision Sony has made, I could name at least one for either of the platform holders.

If you're speaking specifically in terms of marketing, then I'd agree in saying that they're certainly not perfect or completely "in-touch" with appealing to the mainstream. However, I'd say it'd be an exaggeration at best to call the company an outright failure, marketing-wise. They sold 120+ consoles last generation, and they're at the 50+ million mark with the PS3. Perhaps what you're saying is that all this sales success is in spite of their poor marketing as opposed to because of it, and that they have a lot of room to improve their situation more still?

 

[mrcorbo]

They've certainly botched this up from a PR persepctive if nothing else. I betcha MS are laughing their socks off (whilst checking that their own security is up to the task no doubt).

No way MS are happy about this. Incidents like this shake consumer confidence industry-wide. This data breach is bad for everyone save the hackers (unless they are caught) and those that profit off of the stolen information.

 

[mrcorbo]

I don't disagree that Sony as a corporation has made plenty of mistakes and missteps in the past, but I also don't see how they are any worse or different than many other big companies, such as Nintendo or Microsoft. For every poor decision Sony has made, I could name at least one for either of the platform holders.

Whether or not this is objectively true, what is the point in comparing who have been bigger failures? "I have been performing poorly, but it's not as bad when you compare me to this other guy." Really?

 

[Carl B]

I don't disagree that Sony as a corporation has made plenty of mistakes and missteps in the past, but I also don't see how they are any worse or different than many other big companies, such as Nintendo or Microsoft. For every poor decision Sony has made, I could name at least one for either of the platform holders.

I'm not viewing them as equal, in the same way I can't view BP and ExxonMobil as equal: one is clearly the worse. Microsoft's biggest misstep was the RROD situation, but that was linked to a decision process, which while catastrophic, was firmly in the past... generally their efforts with the 360 past that point have been well thought-out, well-received, and their messaging has been great. They have leanred from their mistakes, and that is the difference - Sony seems never to learn, or I worry, never really understand the problem to begin with. Now that praise doesn't extend to Microsoft as a corporation as a whole, but I hope the distinction comes across. As for Nintendo, hell Nintendo is cleaning up - what's the problem over there? The fact that they are now in a position to be worried about 'core' gamers and are now enduring some stories as to slowing Wii sales shows just how sweet the problems they have to contend with are.

 

[Statix]

Whether or not this is objectively true, what is the point in comparing who have been bigger failures? "I have been performing poorly, but it's not as bad when you compare me to this other guy." Really?

I'm not the one doing the comparison; rather, it's Carl B who brought the subject up.

 

[digitalwanderer]

No way MS are happy about this. Incidents like this shake consumer confidence industry-wide. This data breach is bad for everyone save the hackers (unless they are caught) and those that profit off of the stolen information.

Gotta agree with that. While Sony and its customers will suffer the most from this, there ain't gonna be no winners at all from this debacle.

 

[Scott_Arm]

To be honest, regardless of what company this happened to, I don't know why any of us would be worried for Sony, or Microsoft, or Nintendo. In this case it just happened to be Sony that got hit, and Sony that f'ed up in notifying their customers about the potential dangers. I'm not going to sit around feeling bad for them. I'd be worried about someone using my information, or trying to access my other online accounts. I just want to know they've made corrective actions and have a better system in place to notify people, which it seems like they're doing.

I hope there's a huge shakeup in the online services sector, and everyone is getting serious about doing security audits to make sure it doesn't happen to them. I'm sure there are other companies that are vulnerable in some way.

 

[Statix]

I'm not viewing them as equal, in the same way I can't view BP and ExxonMobil as equal: one is clearly the worse. Microsoft's biggest misstep was the RROD situation, but that was linked to a decision process, which while catastrophic, was firmly in the past... generally their efforts with the 360 past that point have been well thought-out, well-received, and their messaging has been great. They have learned from their mistakes, and that is the difference - Sony seems never to learn, or I worry, never really understand the problem to begin with. Now that praise doesn't extend to Microsoft as a corporation as a whole, but I hope the distinction comes across. As for Nintendo, hell Nintendo is cleaning up - what's the problem over there? The fact that they are now in a position to be worried about 'core' gamers and are now enduring some stories as to slowing Wii sales shows just how sweet the problems they have to contend with are.

Sure, the RROD situation is more-or-less in the past (although I'm not 100% certain that even current-generation Xbox 360 units yet are up to par w/ the other two consoles in terms of reliability and failure rates).

You say that they've moved on, and that they've improved their hardware QA and support for the consumer, moving past the RROD situation. That's fantastic, of course... but who's to say that Sony won't move on from its current situation, and accordingly improve their network infrastructure.? All the official statements from Sony about the matter seem to indicate that they are making massive efforts toward enhancing and restructuring the infrastructure and security systems of PSN for posterity. You seem to be implying that Sony is incapable of moving on, improving themselves, and learning from their mistakes. The past couple years I've experienced as a PS3 gamer, in conjunction with the relatively swift blog updates, statements, and Q&A communicae from Sony themselves concerning the PSN breakdown, indicate to me at that they are at least making a genuine effort to become a more dynamic, in-touch company that is more responsive and receptive to consumer feedback.

If there's anything that you can fault Sony for in this situation, it's that they took a few days to investigate the security breach, and some speculate that they may have unnecessarily delayed notifying the public for a few days informing them that their data might have been compromised. Only Sony knows whether this is true or not. Either way, I don't find it to be that big of a deal, and in the past couple of days, Sony seems to be relatively forthcoming and frequent about communicating details to their customers and addressing some of the bigger questions that people have.

With regard to Nintendo, they have done quite well for themselves this generation overall. I never disputed that. However, it's also true that their focus on low-cost hardware and the casual market has left them with dwindling hardware (and software) sales in the mid-late point of the generation (beginning sometime last year), falling behind their more hardcore-oriented rivals. They've also made many mistakes in previous generations, before the Wii, but apparently your argument is about the present and not the past (despite the fact that you have no problem bringing up how poor Sony's history as a company--i.e., past--is).

 

[Gerry]

Where in the world are the supports for this theory?

haha True. Let's just say that sometimes Sony make decisions that, in hindsight, can be construed as having a large streak of idiocy running through them. I don't think that makes them idiots - just that sometimes stupid decisions get made by non-stupid people for stupid reasons.

I struggle to think of a plausable situation where Sony would decide not to bother encrypting user account password to at least some degree.

No way MS are happy about this. Incidents like this shake consumer confidence industry-wide. This data breach is bad for everyone save the hackers (unless they are caught) and those that profit off of the stolen information.

Well I was being slightly facetious, and I'm sure MS are feeling a bit nervous about the security of Xbox Live, but I betcha they're feeling at least a certain sense of satisfaction that it was "them" and not "us" this time.

 

[Carl B]

You say that they've moved on, and that they've improved their hardware QA and support for the consumer, moving past the RROD situation. That's fantastic, of course... but who's to say that Sony won't move on from its current situation, and accordingly improve their network infrastructure.? All the official statements from Sony about the matter seem to indicate that they are making massive efforts toward enhancing and restructuring the infrastructure and security systems of PSN for posterity. You seem to be implying that Sony is incapable of moving on, improving themselves, and learning from their mistakes. The past couple years I've experienced as a PS3 gamer, in conjunction with the recent statements from Sony themselves, indicate to me at that they are at least making a genuine effort to become a more dynamic, in-touch company that is more responsive and receptive to consumer feedback.

You're not understanding the thrust of what I'm saying; it has nothing to do with the technical back-end. My critique here has 0% to do with Sony's network security, and 100% to do with the way it was handled. Maybe a multi-day delay is acceptable to you. For me, it is not. And it is the wording of the release, the parsing of the information, and the generally cynical view I take towards such tenor that gives them a failing mark from me in that regard. Again, nothing to do with the actual security. For instance, if a couple of weeks from now it comes out that CC info was in fact compromised, I won't be surprised at all.

If there's anything that you can fault Sony for in this situation, it's that they took a few days to investigate the security breach, and some speculate that they may have unnecessarily delayed notifying the public for a few days informing them that their data might have been compromised. Only Sony knows whether this is true or not. Either way, I don't find it to be that big of a deal, and in the past couple of days, Sony seems to be relatively forthcoming and frequent about communicating details to their customers and addressing some of the bigger questions that people have.

You and I hold them to different standards here, and I recognize that. I'm not saying I am right and you are wrong, but I don't think we'll agree here.

With regard to Nintendo, they have done quite well for themselves this generation overall. I never disputed that. However, it's also true that their focus on low-cost hardware and the casual market has left them with dwindling hardware (and software) sales in the mid-late point of the generation (beginning sometime last year), falling behind their more hardcore-oriented rivals. They've also made many mistakes in previous generations, before the Wii, but apparently your argument is about the present and not the past (despite the fact that you have no problem bringing up how poor Sony's history as a company--i.e., past--is).

Again my angle here has nothing to do with broader corporate strategy, and everything to do with message delivery and reception. If Nintendo should have focused more on the hardcore market from the outset, that is a different thread; they focused on the casual market, and they messaged accordingly. Were they successful in getting their message across? Yes. On that metric, what we are discussing, I think they have performed phenomenally. As for timeliness, my timeline for botching things up does not extend into the GameCube era or what have you, though if it did, and if broader goals/strategies was the discussion, I would point out that whatever those sales, the console was profitable. That is in contrast to XBox 1, and in contrast to PS3. But, again, that is not the topic I am bringing up here: only messaging.