Sony’s back up! Sort of...
Sony’s PSN services are finally being restored. The three week long hiatus is finally over. They have instituted new rules for security’s sake. But is it enough? Why is Japan still out of the loop? How much of a black eye will Sony have due to this outage?
On April 20, Sony’s PSN was hacked and taken down. A week or so later, after Sony finished reassuring its customers that everything was under control and the network would be up and running soon, Online Entertainment went down as well. After the PSN outage, Sony told the public that user information had been taken, but wasn’t clear whether credit card information had been taken as well. After SOE went out, they confirmed that possibly hundreds of thousands of non US credit card information had been grabbed.
So, now we’re three weeks later. Last weekend, Sony began restoring the network. Right now, if you’re in the US or Europe, you can use the services, but not do anything that requires a credit card. Sony says that the full service will be restored by the end of May. Yay, right?
Sony told the public that it’s done everything possible to ensure the security of the network in the future. But, you have to do your part as a user. There are new regulations in place for password creation. The passwords must be at least 8 characters long, must have at least one letter and one number, cannot have the same consecutive letter or number three times in a row, I.E. 111, and must not be a dictionary word. These steps are fabulous, and ones you should be taking any time you create a password. But one would hope that Sony has done its part as well, and made the back end far more secure than it has been up to this point.
There are those who aren’t so sure Sony has done its part. The Japanese government is not allowing the service to be restored because of ongoing security concerns. They are not sure the measures Sony has taken are effective enough against the countermeasures during the hack. It must be galling for Sony that its home country doesn’t trust it to be secure.
We’re reasonably used to cloud services going down. It’s sort of par for the course. But a three week outage is extreme. I’m not sure how much money Sony has lost, but it must be astronomical. Its share price has dropped by 9% since the beginning of this problem. And what about future opinion? It remains to be seen if people are as willing to trust the service with their info as easily as they once were. Have users found an alternative to the service during the outage that they now prefer?
What are your thoughts? If you previously used the PSN, what did you do during the outage? Did you go to another service or wait? Will you go back to PSN? Have Sony’s troubles affected your opinion of the company at all?
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PSN is back. But for how long? They’ve been attacked two times already within a span of 1 month. This just proves that hackers can easily breach-in to their “secured” system.
As an avid PS3 fan since childhood, I waited for their system to be up again. YES I waited because I thought it will take only a couple of days. But I was very disappointed with them when it took more than 20 days.
This time, I think i will look for another service. I’m not sure which one though. I will just use my PSN account as a backup or when I don’t have anymore games to play with my PS3.
But I still like Sony in general.
Sony, kinda of asinine and incorrigible bunch aren’t they?
I avoided them since the day they installed rootkits on their products,
http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2005/10/31/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights-management-gone-too-far.aspx
https://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/28/rootkits-sony-does-it-again/
Regards
Sony is back up with a new , password, exploit.
Sony confirms exploit with Playstation Network website password reset
Eurogamer has seen video evidence that verifies reports that Sony’s PlayStation Network password reset system suffers from an exploit that allows attackers to change your password using only your PSN account email and your date of birth – information compromised in the PSN hack of 20th April.
Sony today made PSN sign-in unavailable for a number of its websites, including PlayStation.com and the PlayStation forums. All PlayStation game titles are also unavailable.
Crucially, the website users are directed to by password reset emails is now down.
“Unfortunately this also means that those who are still trying to change their password via Playstation.com or Qriocity.com will be unable to do so for the time being,” Sony said. “This is due to essential maintenance and at present it is unclear how long this will take.
“In the meantime you will still be able to sign into PSN via your PlayStation 3 and PSP devices to connect to game services and view Trophy/Friends information.”
Sony later tweeted: “Clarification: this maintenance doesn’t affect PSN on consoles, only the website you click through to from the password change email.”
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-18-sonys-psn-password-page-hacked
It is like a never ending story.
Yes. And the Japanese government still blocks Sony from opening PSN in Japan due to security concern.
Sony may have partially restored its troubled PlayStation Network around the globe, but in Japan government officials have refused to restart the online gaming services due to uncertainty about the supposed security boost, according to reports.
In a Dow Jones press release obtained by gaming blog Engadget, a Japanese regulatory official said Sunday that Sony needs to provide more information on what security measures it has implemented since the massive hack last month that compromised more than 100 million online accounts and caused the company to shut the online gaming service down.
“We are asking Sony whether their measures are good enough when compared to countermeasures taken in the past,” Kazushige Nobutani, director of the Media and Content Industry department at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, told the Dow Jones Newswires.
Restored operations have begun in the United States and Europe, but for now those services are limited to online gaming, chat and music streaming.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20063518-504083.html