Sony Admits Private PSN Info Has Been Stolen - All Of It
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
I been trying to figure that logic in my head for a while already. Is a bank incompetent if they get robbed? So if someone comes to you and with gun-point steals your wallet and your phone (Phones contain lot of valuable data) you are incompetent?Onyx Oblivion said:
Can someone explain this to me?
I think to fizz up this scene a bit XBL should get hacked also, so the people who are being jerks here know how it feels to get fuck'd'up.
Wow. Ouch.
Who would even do such a thing?
I don't exactly blame Sony but on the other hand, they've got an obligation to protect their customers private information...Nyeaahh...
Captcha: this pprookst
ENGLISH ************, DO YOU SPEAK IT?
Who would even do such a thing?
I don't exactly blame Sony but on the other hand, they've got an obligation to protect their customers private information...Nyeaahh...
Captcha: this pprookst
ENGLISH ************, DO YOU SPEAK IT?
While I generally agree with your point, I think in this case it's a little petty to take on the "I told you so" tone. It's not unreasonable to expect a company as big as Sony from preventing all the PSN info from being stolen (or at the very least, letting their customers know about the theft sooner).blind_dead_mcjones said:
can almost garuntee this isn't anon, at least not as a mass movement. It may have been a single user, but anon are fine for destruction, but not theft, they've never done things like this beforeSebster 105 said:
A bank is not incompetent if it gets robbed. However, it is incompetent if it allows someone to walk up and empty the vault in front of the security guards, without so much as calling the cops. Further, while you may not be incompetent if someone robs you at gunpoint and gets away with it, the cop standing on the street corner next to you is. This breach is so big that it goes beyond the usual headlines about companies getting hacked. In those cases, it's always a portion of the database from a set period of time. In Sony's case? The hackers got the entire list. It's the difference between someone getting out a single bag of money at the bank and stealing the whole vault. Further, there is a slight chance that the data was stolen through a hacked PS3, which was able to get to the data because the system trusted it. PS3s should not be able to do that at all, at least not through the PSN -- as in, it shouldn't be possible no matter how good the hacker is, because the two systems should not be connected. Now if they used the PS3 to go through the standard internet channels, it's no worse than if they used a PC to do it, but even in that case, Sony was incompetent for having the data all in one easily accessed place.SinisterGehe said:
Realistically Sony can't be blamed for getting hacked, it happens every day to different companies. What they can be bitched at for was the handling of the situation, the time it took to confirm, they could easily have said "Check your bank for the next week until we find out if your information has indeed been stolen", which they didn't.
The last time I used bank details on PSN anyway was on a card that's now expired belonging to a bank I no longer have an account with in another country so no big deal for me anyway, if they want to know I'm a Male living in Érd well then who cares.
Sucks for everyone else though, I worked in a bank and I've seen how this can affect people so best order new cards or pay close attention until your current one expires if it's close to the expiration date.
One more thing, to everyone (because I won't call you xbots lol!!1! etc) laughing at this, grow the fuck up, this is normal folk like yourselves who are only related to Sony due to their preference of console you're laughing at. On the other hand continue to ***** about Sony if you desire, as it's the "in" thing to do lately anyway.
The last time I used bank details on PSN anyway was on a card that's now expired belonging to a bank I no longer have an account with in another country so no big deal for me anyway, if they want to know I'm a Male living in Érd well then who cares.
Sucks for everyone else though, I worked in a bank and I've seen how this can affect people so best order new cards or pay close attention until your current one expires if it's close to the expiration date.
One more thing, to everyone (because I won't call you xbots lol!!1! etc) laughing at this, grow the fuck up, this is normal folk like yourselves who are only related to Sony due to their preference of console you're laughing at. On the other hand continue to ***** about Sony if you desire, as it's the "in" thing to do lately anyway.
Woa calm down. Its hardly Sony's fault they got hacked. They did the right thing shutting down shop so quickly. Frankly as long as they can get this sorted then I'm fine loosing PSN for a while.Torque669 said:
Yeah maybe sony should have told us sooner about this cos it is pretty big news, but either way its not like Sony was asleep at the wheel. They're doing everything they can to sort it out.
Also. Don't be bringing in your Anti Sony stuff just cos your a fan boy of -Console X-.
I am a PS3 fan, but don't forget that we didn't know about the detail theft until now. Trust me, no one is going to try and rectify this, Sony fucked up big time though I am also heavily pissed off at the Hackers for doing it in the first place.Torque669 said:
Hacking what probably amounts to one of the largest online networks, bringing it down, and walking away with the private financial information of -all- of its users?
That's talent. I hope they catch the guy and throw the book at him, but respect where respect is due, I know I could never pull off a heist like this.
That's talent. I hope they catch the guy and throw the book at him, but respect where respect is due, I know I could never pull off a heist like this.
I'm not supporting Sony on this one. All Geohotz did was allow the console to be put with homebrew, thereby having the possibility of increasing sales. The whole reason the system is down is because of that damn Rebug and someone having the audacity to not have their security up to grasp right. Sony only took it down because they know that DLC rates would go down, thereby decreasing their profit. PSN is down because of greedy bastards.
There, you may now send me hate mail galore.
There, you may now send me hate mail galore.
Earlier: "hackers good! Sony bad! Freedom of speech blah blah blah"
Now: Sony gets hacked by some random internet people and info gets stolen "All hackers bad! fuck you Geohot! woo Sony!"
It's like watching a bad movie where you see the general population making stupid assumptions in the face of disaster even though they're likely vindicating the wrong people.
Except instead of a crowd of idiots, it's the internet.
Now: Sony gets hacked by some random internet people and info gets stolen "All hackers bad! fuck you Geohot! woo Sony!"
It's like watching a bad movie where you see the general population making stupid assumptions in the face of disaster even though they're likely vindicating the wrong people.
Except instead of a crowd of idiots, it's the internet.
Wow, i think my friends paranoia just saved him a lot of trouble, for once (he never buys anything on PSN)
There's a whole lot of understandable rage here, but not a great deal of understanding of what went down.
There are three parties involved in the story here: 1) Sony, 2) Geohot and fail0verflow, 3) whoever broke in and actually stole all this stuff. Two of them are actually involved in the PSN problems right now; the others just discovered the many, many security holes in the PS3's systems and instead of using them for evil, announced them to the world and to Sony.
Let's consider what actually happened with the CFW / root key debacle:
First off, geohot found various system vulnerabilities in the supposedly 'unbreakable' PS3 that eventually enabled him to create custom firmware for the PS3. What this allowed was the running of homebrew software on the console - the same sort of thing that's been happening to consoles of every generation for a long, long time now. You can do it on most handhelds, you can do it on the old Xbox, etc etc. He got a lot of media time for it because Sony went after him in a big way, but he didn't do anything that came close to hacking the actual network. He just hacked the machine, in a way that people have been doing quite legitimately for decades.
Then, sometime later, thanks to a massive gaping security fail by Sony, geohot and fail0verflow were able to decode and publicise Sony's certificate signing key for the PS3. They did this not to enable wide-spread hacking of Sony systems (which has nothing to do with the key they publicised), and not because it was difficult to do it and nobody else could have done so, but in fact because it was so easy to do so that someone really needed to point it out to Sony before it was used maliciously. They didn't have to spend weeks knee-deep in code to work out the key. You know what they had to do? Compare two certificates and do a bit of maths. It turns out that the signing algorithm Sony were using for their certificates requires a random and unique value for every certificate, but Sony, in their infinite wisdom, decided to use the same random value for every single one. Anyone could have found the key - it's a mistake so basic and ridiculous that the only reason it took so long to be spotted was that nobody had even considered the idea that all you'd have to do is compare two certificates and reduce the equations. I'm not kidding. Sony's random number generator looks more or less like this:
These are the people you've entrusted your personal details to.
So that opened up the whole custom firmware scene again, but still - all this happened months ago. Since then there have been a few custom firmwares flying around, that let you run cool stuff on your console that you otherwise would have never been able to get onto it. Still no actual hacking (in the black-hat sense) yet.
Then, a few weeks ago, it was presumably discovered that by using a custom firmware that gave access to the console's debug functions, you could gain access to bits of the PSN you weren't supposed to, and the system wouldn't even notice you were using faked credentials. That's the first massive fail on Sony's part. It's fairly trivial to make sure you know what sort of machines are connected to your network, but Sony just didn't bother to implement the checks - because, y'know, even though the ability to install custom firmware had been around for a year, it never occurred to anyone at Sony that they might want to secure the first line of PSN defence. By manipulating whatever god-awful security protocols Sony clearly did have, whoever was behind the attack was able to gain read access to the full PSN user database. That was the second massive fail on Sony's part - even faked debug systems that have got onto the network should not be able to just walk in and grab that sort of sensitive data. And then, to the amazement of all involved, it turns out that not only were they able to access your data, but the really sensitive stuff - the stuff that should never, ever be stored in plaintext, like passwords - was all just there, waiting to be taken. That was the third massive fail on Sony's part. Bear in mind that just by using a modern, secure hashing technique (several of which are free and easy to implement), you can avoid ever having to send the email that says "we're sorry, someone's stolen your password."
You have to wonder - if the point of intrusion really was via unsecured channels through a modded PS3, then you have to ask - why didn't Sony decide to tighten up security a year ago, when geohot proved the console was breakable?
The people who did the work on exposing the security flaws in the console itself did it a) to prove a point to Sony, namely that their security model was massively flawed, and b) to open the hardware up to the ever-present modding community. They are mathematicians and computer science geeks. The people who have stolen your personal information are probably the Russian mafia. There is no connection, and blaming geohot for this situation is, as someone said before, akin to blaming Alfred Nobel for the fact that people blow each other up with dynamite. He just invented the stuff and told the world, he didn't put it in your hands and light the fuse.
Sony, on the other hand, have genuinely been criminally negligent at all levels. If you're still feeling sorry for them, consider this: they're one of the planet's biggest tech companies, but they don't know to secure a user database. They don't know how to implement a relatively simple cryptography algorithm. We're not talking rocket science here - anyone with a basic understanding of computer science and five minutes to read the wiki page could do a better job than they did. They left their networks wide open to all manner of attacks, on the basis that nobody would know where to attack. Security through obscurity isn't security, it just means when you do get hit it takes you longer to notice.
And then to put the icing on the cake, if you believe the official line about informing the public immediately, it's taken them a week to realise what actually happened - during which time your credit card details have probably already been sold halfway across the world. Don't feel sorry for Sony - they really, really don't deserve it.
There are three parties involved in the story here: 1) Sony, 2) Geohot and fail0verflow, 3) whoever broke in and actually stole all this stuff. Two of them are actually involved in the PSN problems right now; the others just discovered the many, many security holes in the PS3's systems and instead of using them for evil, announced them to the world and to Sony.
Let's consider what actually happened with the CFW / root key debacle:
First off, geohot found various system vulnerabilities in the supposedly 'unbreakable' PS3 that eventually enabled him to create custom firmware for the PS3. What this allowed was the running of homebrew software on the console - the same sort of thing that's been happening to consoles of every generation for a long, long time now. You can do it on most handhelds, you can do it on the old Xbox, etc etc. He got a lot of media time for it because Sony went after him in a big way, but he didn't do anything that came close to hacking the actual network. He just hacked the machine, in a way that people have been doing quite legitimately for decades.
Then, sometime later, thanks to a massive gaping security fail by Sony, geohot and fail0verflow were able to decode and publicise Sony's certificate signing key for the PS3. They did this not to enable wide-spread hacking of Sony systems (which has nothing to do with the key they publicised), and not because it was difficult to do it and nobody else could have done so, but in fact because it was so easy to do so that someone really needed to point it out to Sony before it was used maliciously. They didn't have to spend weeks knee-deep in code to work out the key. You know what they had to do? Compare two certificates and do a bit of maths. It turns out that the signing algorithm Sony were using for their certificates requires a random and unique value for every certificate, but Sony, in their infinite wisdom, decided to use the same random value for every single one. Anyone could have found the key - it's a mistake so basic and ridiculous that the only reason it took so long to be spotted was that nobody had even considered the idea that all you'd have to do is compare two certificates and reduce the equations. I'm not kidding. Sony's random number generator looks more or less like this:
These are the people you've entrusted your personal details to.
So that opened up the whole custom firmware scene again, but still - all this happened months ago. Since then there have been a few custom firmwares flying around, that let you run cool stuff on your console that you otherwise would have never been able to get onto it. Still no actual hacking (in the black-hat sense) yet.
Then, a few weeks ago, it was presumably discovered that by using a custom firmware that gave access to the console's debug functions, you could gain access to bits of the PSN you weren't supposed to, and the system wouldn't even notice you were using faked credentials. That's the first massive fail on Sony's part. It's fairly trivial to make sure you know what sort of machines are connected to your network, but Sony just didn't bother to implement the checks - because, y'know, even though the ability to install custom firmware had been around for a year, it never occurred to anyone at Sony that they might want to secure the first line of PSN defence. By manipulating whatever god-awful security protocols Sony clearly did have, whoever was behind the attack was able to gain read access to the full PSN user database. That was the second massive fail on Sony's part - even faked debug systems that have got onto the network should not be able to just walk in and grab that sort of sensitive data. And then, to the amazement of all involved, it turns out that not only were they able to access your data, but the really sensitive stuff - the stuff that should never, ever be stored in plaintext, like passwords - was all just there, waiting to be taken. That was the third massive fail on Sony's part. Bear in mind that just by using a modern, secure hashing technique (several of which are free and easy to implement), you can avoid ever having to send the email that says "we're sorry, someone's stolen your password."
You have to wonder - if the point of intrusion really was via unsecured channels through a modded PS3, then you have to ask - why didn't Sony decide to tighten up security a year ago, when geohot proved the console was breakable?
The people who did the work on exposing the security flaws in the console itself did it a) to prove a point to Sony, namely that their security model was massively flawed, and b) to open the hardware up to the ever-present modding community. They are mathematicians and computer science geeks. The people who have stolen your personal information are probably the Russian mafia. There is no connection, and blaming geohot for this situation is, as someone said before, akin to blaming Alfred Nobel for the fact that people blow each other up with dynamite. He just invented the stuff and told the world, he didn't put it in your hands and light the fuse.
Sony, on the other hand, have genuinely been criminally negligent at all levels. If you're still feeling sorry for them, consider this: they're one of the planet's biggest tech companies, but they don't know to secure a user database. They don't know how to implement a relatively simple cryptography algorithm. We're not talking rocket science here - anyone with a basic understanding of computer science and five minutes to read the wiki page could do a better job than they did. They left their networks wide open to all manner of attacks, on the basis that nobody would know where to attack. Security through obscurity isn't security, it just means when you do get hit it takes you longer to notice.
And then to put the icing on the cake, if you believe the official line about informing the public immediately, it's taken them a week to realise what actually happened - during which time your credit card details have probably already been sold halfway across the world. Don't feel sorry for Sony - they really, really don't deserve it.