1.56m Aussie Sony accounts thwacked, hacked, cracked and jacked

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 02 May 2011 16:19

Opinion and Analysis

Sony needs a smack following the hacking of its supposedly well-protected Playstation Network, with over 1.56m Australians affected by the global breach.

With Sony's Playstation Network having suffered a well publicised attack, its users around the world have probably been at the praystation instead, praying that their details weren't scooped up along with everyone else's.

However, with news reports including from The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald putting the figure at between 1.5 and 1.6m Australian users, with Sony specifically stating 1,560,791 local accounts being affected, you can pray at the praystation all you want: your data has probably been thwacked, hacked, cracked and jacked.

Of course, it's not just members of the PSN (PlayStation Network) but also members of Sony's 'Qriocity' music download service that were also affected, and while there is clearly going to be some cross-pollination of accounts, meaning the real figure is less than 1.56m actual individuals, it's still a hack of epic proportions.

Sony said in a statement that the figure did include 'sub-accounts and/or multiple accounts per user', and while Sony says that it 'credit card data' was encrypted, and that it 'has no reports of criminal usage', reports last week suggested on Australian customer had indeed seen criminal activity on his credit card account.

Thankfully, not all 1.56m accounts had credit card details attached - Sony says the figure is 280,000 accounts with credit card details, but any loss of credit card information, even if for one single user, is a very, very bad thing.   

It just goes to show that even the world's largest companies are not immune to cyber attack, and that as always, you have to be very careful with your data.

Indeed, will this now see a surge of 'pre-paid' credit cards being issued and used for online shopping or online accounts, thus somewhat better safeguarding your actual credit card from evil hack-attack?

Or is that simply another means to 'security by obscurity' which is never a sound security policy?

 

Continued on page two, please read on!