Hacking

When it rains for Sony, it pours for Sony. According to reports from the Wall Street Journal, hackers have managed to infiltrate Sony's subsidiary ISP, So-net Entertainment Corp., and make off with around $1,225 in redeemable gift points.


According to So-net, the company discovered the breach after receiving customer complaints on May 18. A subsequent investigation concluded that hackers were able to tap into approximately 128 different accounts across May 16 and May 17, stealing around 100,000 yen (or $1,225) worth of points from the account holders. An additional 73 accounts were also accessed, their points left unredeemed, and around 90 So-net email accounts were compromised in the attack.

"Although we can't completely rule out the possibility that there is a connection with the PSN issue, the likelihood is low," So-net Entertainment spokesperson Keisuke Watabe said.

To So-net's credit, whatever security system the company employs for its point system did manage to hold for quite a bit of time. That, or the hackers really had no other strategies other than what appears to be a brute-force attack on accounts. It allegedly took the attackers more than 10,000 different attempts before they were finally successful in accessing So-net's system.

Following the attack, So-net has alerted its customers and asked them to change their passwords on their accounts. The company has also stopped point exchanges across its network for the time being.

"At this point in our investigations, we have not confirmed any data leakage," said Watabe, offering up a bit of a silver lining for the attack. "We have not found any sign of a possibility that a third party has obtained members' names, address, birth dates and phone numbers."

The timing of the So-net attack couldn't be worst for Sony. An unrelated Sony attack was also discovered earlier this week, in which hackers managed to penetrate Sony's Thailand site and publish a phishing page on the company's servers. The page was dolled up to look as if it was for the Italian CartaSi credit card, and it asked users to submit all of their specific credit card information before redirecting them over to the official CartaSi site.

Once contacted by F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen, who discovered the phishing attempt, Sony removed the offending page.

Phishing Site on Sony Server

Oh, Sony. Capping off a week that saw Sony disable logins across some of its PlayStation Network properties thanks to a password exploit, F-Secure identified a phishing site running on one of Sony's servers.


Today's incident, however, "has nothing to do with the Sony PSN hack," F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen wrote in a blog post.

"We know you're not supposed to kick somebody when they're already down ... but we just found a live phishing site running on one of Sony's servers," Hypponen said. "Basically this means that Sony has been hacked, again. Although in this case the server is probably not very important."

Hypponen posted screen shots of the official homepage of Sony Thailand, as well as a phishing site using the URL hdworld.sony.co.th (above), which appears to target an Italian credit card company.

He notified Sony of the problem and later tweeted that "I can confirm that Sony has just minutes ago cleaned their site and removed the phishing site from hdworld.sony co.th."

When asked via Twitter if the site was hosted on Sony's servers or just a DNS hijack, Hypponen said it was hosted on Sony's servers.

This latest problem comes days after Sony started putting its PlayStation network back online after an extended downtime. It hasn't been completely smooth sailing; an influx of users trying to change their passwords prompted Sony to temporarily halt the process earlier this week; the password exploit later took down log-ins, but Sony denied it was a new hack.

Hacking on PlayStation 3

Sony on Wednesday denied that it disabled log-ins for the PlayStation Network today due to another hacking incident.
"Contrary to some reports, there was no hack involved. In the process of resetting of passwords there was a URL exploit that we have subsequently fixed," Patrick Seybold, Sony's senior director of corporate communications and social media, wrote in a blog post.


Online log-ins are still down for PlayStation.com, PlayStation forums, PlayStation Blog, Qriocity.com, Music Unlimited via the web client, and all PlayStation game title Web sites. Users still have access via the PlayStation 3 and PSP devices.

"Consumers who haven't reset their passwords for PSN are still encouraged to do so directly on their PS3. Otherwise, they can continue to do so via the Web site as soon as we bring that site back up," Seybold wrote.

Seybold did not provide a timeline for when that might occur or elaborate on the URL exploit that prompted the downtime. But according to Eurogamer and Nyleveia.com, there was a glitch with Sony's PlayStation Network password system that allowed a hacker to change your password armed only with your PSN account email address and date of birth.

"We for rather obvious reasons do not want to elaborate further on the exact details of the exploit, on the off chance that when the web based interface for PSN is restored the exploit has not been patched," according to Nyleveia.com, which alerted Sony to the exploit.

This latest problem comes days after Sony started putting its PlayStation network back online after an extended downtime. It hasn't been completely smooth sailing; an influx of users trying to change their passwords prompted Sony to temporarily halt the process earlier this week.

Sony PlayStation

PSN's back! PSN's back! Tell the world! Most of the world has known that Sony's PlayStation Network has been back online in most areas for a day now, but Sony's not satisfied with just bringing things back online. Now, the company's detailing a new plan to hook customers up who are forgiving the company and sticking with 'em. It's a "Welcome Back" appreciation program for users in North America.


This package will be made available to all existing registered PlayStation Network and Qriocity users in North America (US and Canada), and will be made available shortly after we have fully restored the service. More specific details about these offers and eligibility requirements will be posted as the services go live, but the specifics so far are here: all PlayStation Network customers can select two PS3 games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

* Dead Nation
* inFAMOUS
* LittleBigPlanet
* Super Stardust HD
* Wipeout HD + Fury

For PSP owners, you will be eligible to download two PSP games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

* LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
* ModNation Racers
* Pursuit Force
* Killzone Liberation

SONY PS3

While Sony has begun restoring its online services in the U.S. and Europe, Japanese regulators have not allowed Sony to resume the networks in Japan because they are not convinced the networks have been properly secured.
After meeting with Sony twice this month, Kazushige Nobutani, director of the Media and Content Industry department at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, told Dow Jones it was waiting for Sony to achieve two things:


"The first is preventative measures. As of May 13, Sony was incomplete in exercising measures that they said they will do on the May 1 press conference," he said.

Secondly, "There were similar cases in the past that were caused by other firms, and we are asking Sony whether their measures are good enough when compared to countermeasures taken in the past," he said.

Sony Japan apologized to its customers at its PlayStation blog, which instructs users to download a firmware update, v.3.61, on Monday to update their passwords. It is still in discussions with various agencies to resume the service, the company wrote.

On Saturday evening, Sony posted firmware update instructions for customers in the U.S. and Europe to change their passwords. Sony also announced it would begin a phased return of PlayStation Network services following a three-week outage, which was prompted by a security breach that forced the company to take down the network.

"Please note that these services will take a bit of time to be turned on and rolled out to the whole country," Sony wrote in a blog post on Saturday.

The company is also offering customers free enrollment in identity-theft protection programs in countries where they are available, and has promised a "welcome back package" sometime in the future.

Sony PSN Located Map

Sony Online Entertainment brought its PlayStation Network back online in parts of Europe and the U.S. Saturday, but some 12 hours after the announcement many PSN customers were left wondering when it would be their turn.


At about 8:30 p.m. ET Saturday, Sony announced it would begin a "phased" return of PSN services to customers following a three-week outage caused by a hack of the network that forced the company to take it down. But a map of the U.S. that Sony is updating to reflect when its network goes live in individual states was left with numerous states without service in the Midwest, South and Northeast as of about 8 a.m. ET.

Several hours after the initial announcement, PCMag readers in Texas, Illinois and other states were complaining that PSN service had not been restored to their areas. Sony had warned that it would "take several hours to restore PSN throughout the entire country."

Meanwhile, PSN customers in Australia and the Caribbean wondered when their areas would go back online. Sony's Saturday announcement only referred to Europe and North America.

The company issued a further notice to PSN customers whose service had been turned on but who still weren't able to access the network:

"Notice: If your state is illuminated but your service has not yet been restored, please be patient – it can take a little while for the servers to populate fully," wrote Patrick Seybold, Sony's senior director of corporate communications and social media, in a brief blog post announcing the resumption of PSN service.

The restoration of PSN service requires a firmware update on PS3 consoles and requires users to change their passwords. Instructions for installing the firmware update were posted Saturday.

Sony is also offering customers free enrollment in identity theft protection programs in countries where they are available, the company said.

Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kazuo Hirai appeared in a video statement announcing the restoration of PSN services that began with an apology to users for the outage (video below).

"I wish we could have restored the network services faster, but these attacks were serious and sophisticated, and it simply took time to install and test the new security measures across our entire system," Hirai said.

He also promised customers a "welcome back package," the details of which would be announced in "the coming days."