Associated Press reports:
Sony said Wednesday intruders staged a massive attempt to access user accounts on its PlayStation Network and other online entertainment services in the second major attack on its flagship gaming site this year.
The Tokyo-based company temporarily locked about 93,000 accounts whose IDs and passwords were successfully ascertained by the blitz. Sony sent email notifications and password reset procedures to affected customers on the PlayStation Network, Sony Entertainment Network and Sony Online Entertainment services.
Read more on CTV.ca.
It’s bad enough that their earlier breach embarrassed them on data security. But after claims of improved security, this incident has the potential to embarrass them again, even though this time, it appears that there might have been a brute force attack using usernames and passwords obtained from some other database(s).
Having also been criticized for its slow response in disclosing and warning people, Sony was quicker this time. The attacks appear to have occurred between October 7 and 10, and the firm posted a notice on its site October 11, although it had not yet sent out e-mails to those affected at the time of its blog post. Users generally responded appreciatively to the quick disclosure, as evident in the comments in response to the blog post.
In related coverage, John Leyden reports:
Sony has warned users against a massive bruteforce attack against PlayStation and Sony network accounts.
The attack – which used password and user ID combinations from an unidentified third-party source – succeeded in compromising 60,000 PlayStation Network and 33,000 Sony Online Entertainment network accounts. These accounts have been locked and passwords reset.
Credit card information is not stored on the dashboard of Sony accounts but it might have been possible that unauthorised charges were made against the wallets held on compromised accounts. Sony has promised to refund any such losses, as explained in a statement by Philip Reitinger, senior vice president and chief information security officer at Sony Group, on the PlayStation blog here.
Read more on The Register.