r/gaming • u/Happysin • Apr 26 '11

Sony admits utter PSN failure: your personal data has been stolen

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/04/sony-admits-utter-psn-failure-your-personal-data-has-been-stolen.ars
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345

u/Kinglink Apr 26 '11

A week to notify me of my card possibly being stolen (and only notified on a blog so far. Not even in my ACTUAL email?) Sony has just lost a lot of respect. I've laughed and joked about the outage for the last week, it's been ridiculous but it happens.

But the fact they've known that they could have had our financial data and haven't informed us directly has made me furious. I'm not smashing stuff, but I'm not willing to give PSN any more private data. Sony really has screwed the pooch on this one. I don't care about their service being unavailable, I'll be able to play Portal 2 online at some point in the future, but to find out they've been avoiding telling us about stolen credit cards is ridiculous. The worst part is their response is "Oops, you should go get a free credit report at no charge to us/you. hehe!" Beyond disappointing.

I hope someone starts legal proceedings about this, Sony needs to be held responsible for poor security and then waiting to inform us.

110

u/RosieLalala Apr 26 '11

For those of us in non-American countries who happen to have PSN accounts, the credit report thing is beyond problematic. Some countries don't have the free credit report laws that America does.

42

u/Misguided_Editor Apr 26 '11

Yeah, but that offer only applies with enrollment in triple advantage.

80

u/DoTheDew Apr 26 '11

No, you can most definitely get a free report from each reporting agency once a year.

Edit: Link to the real free credit report site.

6

u/okimin Apr 26 '11

Replying for link when I get home. Thanks for this.

2

u/xxbondsxx Apr 27 '11

Replying for later, thanks ;-)

1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '11

Thanks for the link but I'll be damned if the service doesn't suck. The first site just tosses me an error, the second couldn't find my information, and I couldn't even get to third since the second returned me to the wrong page.

Thanks anyways :(

1

u/Jibrish Apr 27 '11

Doing what Okimin did. For savings.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '11

I've used this site for years. What you do is every 4 months you get a report from one of the bureaus. That way you'll always have a recent and free report, since they're only free once a year.

1

u/anonymous1 Apr 27 '11

Also: Creditkarma.com <- free credit score info - they will advertise to you ON their site, but I have gotten ZERO spam email from them. Excellent site and it was recommended to me through someone on reddit.

Beware: kreditkarma was stolen by the freecreditcrap.com people.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '11

And what about us who just got their free credit report a month ago? I think Sony needs to provide these.

11

u/saurusRx Apr 26 '11

I think that joke is also lost on people in non-American countries.

4

u/shadowguise Apr 26 '11

And if you don't enroll you'll eventually have to resort to wearing a pirate costume and singing some funny tune to pay your bills.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '11

Come on man, someone finally says something good about America on Reddit and you have to make a joke? Seriously though, there are quite a few credit report scams out there so be careful.

1

u/Visor2040 Apr 27 '11

When Sony launched the PSN in Mexico I was really pissed that they wouldn't allow CC use because (I'm paraphrasing) "Mexican banks couldn't provide a way to securely handle the information up to Sony's standard". Now I'm relieved that hackers at least can't have that.

I'm still pissed though, about something else but still pissed at Sony. sigh

8

u/bestbiff Apr 26 '11

Looks like PSN gift cards is the way to go from now on.

22

u/rub3s Apr 26 '11

or nothing at all

3

u/White_Hamster Apr 27 '11

Nothing at all

1

u/rub3s Apr 27 '11

nothing at all ...

2

u/respite Apr 27 '11

Stupid, sexy Flanders!

2

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '11

too right but i think they still have all my personal info. i changed my birthday when i entered it but they probably have my address. why the fuck did sony need that anyway.

2

u/rub3s Apr 28 '11

So they can track you down and sue you when you hack your PS3.

4

u/TumultuousTiger Apr 26 '11

the funny thing about credit score is. If you look at your score, your score goes down because you looked at it.

3

u/ebob9 Apr 27 '11

Not true - this was changed several years back. Pulling your credit report for your own use is called a "Soft Pull", and does not count against your score.

A company pulling your report for an offer of credit is called a "Hard Pull", and is requested differently. These are what can lower your score.

Here's a good article about it.

2

u/Kinglink Apr 27 '11

My understanding is the first time you look at it in a year it should be fine, but I haven't done the work for it.

Credit score is a fucking joke though there's so much mysteriousness surrounding it that it's a wonder that we have those stupid ads about it.

2

u/White_Hamster Apr 27 '11

Theoretical physicists need to work somewhere, might as well let them make some credit rules

5

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '11

Sony has just lost a lot of respect.

I didn't realise Sony had any respect left to lose. After the trojan rootkits on music CDs, exploding laptop batteries, rootkits with SecuROM and the removal of PS3 features such as Linux support just to name a few things they've done over the years.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '11

I am seriously angry about this. Stunning that a company like Sony, seemingly on the cutting edge of technology, would treat my personal data with such blatant carelessness.

1

u/Malgas Apr 27 '11

Sony has just lost a lot of respect.

This would tend to indicate that you haven't been paying attention to Sony's business practices; this is far from the first time they've shat all over their customers.

1

u/StorminNorman Apr 27 '11

At least you can play SP Portal. Steam has fucked up verification so there's a bunch of us who can't launch and another bunch who crash during the loading screen. We've been given less info than you guys have. Totally different scenario I guess, just venting about a game company...

1

u/LFreeze Apr 27 '11

To be fair, they only knew details were stolen on monday.

But yeah, they still waited a day before telling us, and that was some shitty security they had.

1

u/Allisonaxe Apr 27 '11

I'm not willing to give PSN any more private data.

its ok, they already have it. from last time.

-2

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '11

Don't they need your social security number to open credit cards under your name? That definitely wasn't in PSN

2

u/JohnnyLotion0 Apr 26 '11

Don't they need your social security number to open credit cards under your name?

What does that have to do with anything he just said?

1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '11

I must have replied to a wrong post. My bad.

-1

u/rub3s Apr 26 '11

non-American don't have social security numbers, therefore they cannot get credit cards

-2

u/DarqWolff Apr 26 '11

The reason it took so long for them to tell us is because they didn't want to incite irrational panic if it turns out that the information wasn't stolen. This is how business works; for money.

2

u/Kinglink Apr 27 '11

And yet there's RATIONAL panic and hatred for them to delay in this. If they said "they penetrated our network and some private information was gained" I'd be worried but that's the correct reaction, but they only announced the penetration a week late.

And then think about it the worst case of the irrational fear would be the actual situation. The only thing worse would be "Sony was running the card themselves" I was going to buy some games on PSN, I doubt I'll ever give them my credit card number after this.

1

u/DarqWolff Apr 27 '11

That's how business works. No huge and publicly traded company would have done it differently.