Thursday, April 28, 2011

If you use the PlayStation Network, it's time to change your passwords everywhere

After days of outage, Sony is finally coming clean regarding exactly what the "external intruder" gained access to during their hack attack on the gaming giant. And the news is not good. Sony has essentially given up all information about their customers except their credit card numbers... they think.

As Seybold lays it out, the hacker — or “unauthorized person” to be specific — managed to obtain pretty much every bit of information you might’ve given the company, which I’m listing below:

- Name
- Address (city, state, zip)
- Country
- Email address
- Birthdate
- PSN / Qriocity password and login
- PSN online ID / handle
- Purchase history
- Billing address
- Password security answers
The biggest issue here is that most people use the same information to log into their game networks as they use to log into their banks and other financial companies. Thus, by simply reusing the usernames, personal info, and "personal security answers" here, the hacker may be able to steal money from many PSN users without having to touch Sony's network again.

If you're a PSN user, please change your username, password, and security answers at any financial services website that used the same info as Sony's system. Don't wait for the hackers to sell this info to criminals.

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