By now, you already know about the hack and break-in of Sony Playstation servers. Here are interesting observations from around the nets…
[] Sony PlayStation Security Breach Not a Game
[] Sony Playstation Security Breach (AUDIO)
[] Bono Mack Calls for Investigation Into Sony PlayStation Security Breach
[] Sony PlayStation security breach – how to protect yourself
[] Sony sued over PlayStation security breach and data theft
[] About That PlayStation Security Breach: Good News! Also, Bad News
[] Phil Lieberman statement on Sony PlayStation security breach
Sony PlayStation Security Breach Not a Game
The SONY Corporation has reported that 70 million consumers around the world have had personal data compromised in the latest major data security breach, according to media reports.
Full story : www.cutimes.com
Sony Playstation Security Breach (AUDIO)
People’s email addresses, countries of origin, birthdays and even credit card information may have been stolen from Playstation users. Technology journalist and expert Adrian Mars talks about the incident and possible repercussions. Full story : Public Radio International www.pri.org
Bono Mack Calls for Investigation of
Sony PlayStation Security Breach
U.S. Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, who represents Murrieta in Congress, has directed a subcommittee to begin a thorough investigation into the Sony PlayStation security breach that caused a hacker to obtain personal information on more than 70 million users.
The breach caused a shut down of Sony’s PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems, which consumers use to play online gaming and access music, movies, sports and TV shows. Full story : Maggie Avants | murrieta.patch.com
Sony PlayStation security breach – how to protect yourself
The malicious attack that brought down Sony’s PlayStation network has its 77m-strong community wondering just what the attack will mean for their personal security and vital information, such as credit card details. Here’s what the experts say.
Dermot Williams, MD of IT security company Threatscape says
Sony PlayStation network customers will rightly be concerned at the breadth of their personal data which may now be in the hands of an unknown hacker or team of hackers – name, address, password, answers to security questions, date of birth and possibly even credit card details
Full story : www.siliconrepublic.comSony sued over PlayStation security breach and data theft
Sony Corp.’s network entertainment unit was sued by a PlayStation customer claiming it failed to protect personal data and privacy rights after the company said users’ credit-card data may have been stolen by a hacker.
Sony delayed disclosing the security breach to PlayStation online games customers, who couldn’t access the service as a result of the problems, according to the complaint filed today in federal court in San Francisco. Sony warned its 77 million PlayStation Network and Qriocity online service customers that their credit-card data, billing addresses and other personal information may have been stolen by a hacker. Full story : www.washingtonpost.com
About That PlayStation Security Breach:
Good News! Also, Bad News
Okay, so you know that whole Sony PlayStation Network issue where tons of people had their private information compromised, thanks to a mysterious security breach that happened sometime between April 17 and 19?
The bad news? Malicious hackers might have taken your data anyway. According to Sony’s doublespeak, “While all credit card information stored in our systems is encrypted and there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility.” Full story : thestir.cafemom.com
Phil Lieberman statement on Sony PlayStation security breach
Taking a baseball bat to a hornet’s nest is never an advisable strategy. Sony’s strategy in defending its intellectual property was heavy handed and has triggered the “nuclear option” with those that it engaged. Perhaps Sony could learn a few lesions from Microsoft in how it has handled XBOX 360 and Kinect intellectual property.
My suggestions for consumers:
- Don’t provide your correct DOB or other personal information to this type of vendor (i.e. playing games on-line)
- Use a throw away email account
- Use an anonymous debit card for these types of on-line transactions
- Use a unique password per site
- Always assume that the company gathering your personal information in totally incompetent at securing the data, and consider what you share with them and how you are going to recover your personal identity after they lose your information.
The reality of cloud data security and PCI today are that they are ineffective and there are no consequences for many companies that under-invest in security. You can be sure that the CIO and CSO at Sony responsible for this situation will probably not be fired or held accountable for their poor decisions. Similarly, the auditor responsible for the Sony account will similarly (in all probability and looking at these situations historically) not be held accountable. The loss of your personal information will (mot likely) be nothing more than a “cost of doing business” for this type of company-you will take the pain and they will take a hit to their reputation (maybe).
It is for this reason we are fundamentally opposed to hiding PCI results as well as SAS70 reports from the public. If you don’t have access to the full internal security report of a vendor you are dealing with, you should expect that they have little to no real security and that your data will probably be compromised.
There is abundant technology to prevent this breach and/or limit its scope, but Sony chose to not implement it. Putting this much data in a single database that is publicly extractable with no limits is shameful given what is available today to protect against this type of loss.
In the case of Sony, we have a situation where they created their own emotionally motivated attacker and failed to protect themselves sufficiently. In general, attacks are for financial gain rather than for personal revenge. Full story : Phil Lieberman, CEO, Lieberman Software, Los Angeles (www.liebsoft.com)
Thanks for reading…
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