77 Million Accounts Stolen From Playstation Network 645
Runaway1956 was one of many users to continue to update us about the intrusion we've been following this week.
"Sony is warning its millions of PlayStation Network users to watch out for identity-theft scams after hackers breached its security and plundered the user names, passwords, addresses, birth dates, and other information used to register accounts. Sony's stunning admission came six days after the PlayStation Network was taken down following what the company described as an 'external intrusion'. The stolen information may also include payment-card data, purchase history, billing addresses, and security answers used to change passwords, Sony said on Tuesday. The company plans to keep the hacked system offline for the time being, and to restore services gradually. The advisory also applies to users of Sony's related Qriocity network."
SonyDownhill (Score:3, Interesting)
Gee, Sony just catch a break lately. I'm wondering if they are going to be asked to appear before the US Senate to explain their actions, just like Apple and Google? I think this is a little more serious than just tracking my phone location.
Re:Unencrypted = Stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
We need laws for this crap now. Someone doesn't even try to use adequate obfuscation, they are accessories. Specifically, for protection of SSNs (yes I know the fact that they are good for so much is stupid, but we live in reality) and credit card numbers, and anything else equivalent.
Re:passwords? (Score:1, Interesting)
Not only that:
- If you wanted to play any of the games online, you had to have a PSN account. Which meant you had to provide a credit card whether you were ever going to buy anything or not.
- Certain companies liked to tie PSN accounts to their forum accounts.
End result: massive security headache for every user who's ever touched PSN for any reason.
Extra fun: waiting while their entire network is down, to play basically online-only (or "so much online component that the single-player is a fucking joke") games. You know, like Call of Duty: Crap Ops.
To paraphrase Obi-Wan, It was as if millions of voices suddenly cried out... and then were suddenly made to change their passwords.
Leaving PSN Down (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:passwords? (Score:5, Interesting)
About as amateur as using a static constant instead of a random number when signing firmware and games, which is exactly what they did (and which pretty much cost them their entire system security).
Might not be bad... (Score:4, Interesting)
There are two schools of thought here...
If the passsword is stored as a hash on the server, then it is more resistant to attacks against the storage of the server. However, this does require the password be transmitted over the wire in one way or another on every connection. A man-in-the-middle attack with ip spoofing or dns cache poisioning has a non-trivial shot at compromising the password.
If the password is stored 'in the clear' on the server side and treat the password as a shared secret, then *if* you design the authentication right, you render man in the middle infeasible with the tradeoff of storage attack being a large exposure. A common scheme is to have client have a packet, concatenate with the password, calculate hash, then strip password before transmit. Server then repeats calculation and only accepts payload if secret matches. Usually, server responses are protected the same way, meaning only the server you *meant* to talk to can meaningfully respond because it needs your password to calculate correct hash responses.
All that said, it's also entirely likely that Sony has crypted hash passwords, but it's safer to say 'your password is compromised', because of how many users have passwords like 'yourmom65' rendering the hashing pointless.
Re:Fallout (Score:5, Interesting)
TJX's stock is up 100% since 2006 when the breach occurred. http://www.google.com/finance?q=tjx [google.com] Point being is, if nothing seriously negative happens to Sony then it's no wonder that firms continue to have poor security practices. After all, why bother spending the effort and money to secure data when there is no return on the investment?
Many years ago, I was in a meeting with heads of a bank, discussing their need for penetration testing, auditing, etc.
So, after all that talk, one guy simply asks:
"Why would we spend dozens and hundreds of thousands of dollars on security services/products/staff, when it costs us 200 dollars to issue few press releases that claim how no valuable data was lost, and everything will be just fine?"
I had no answer to this.
That's why in 2011. we are witnessing things like this.
That's why in 2011, Sony will still be determined to be PCI/DSS compliant, although they probably don't satisfy 50%-70% of requirements.
It's because they don't give a fuck and don't care. There is nothing you/we can do to them, they are on the top of the food chain.
Because humans are greedy, like flashy toys and are too blind to see what's happening in front of their eyes.
Oh well, back to work :)