Sony responds to congressional inquiry over ‘highly sophisticated’ cyberattack

By on May 4, 2011 at 1:18 PM
Gaming May 4, 2011

Sony on Wednesday responded to a congressional inquiry regarding major cyberattacks against its Qriocity, PlayStation Network, and Sony Online Entertainment businesses that leaked loads of personal information, including credit card numbers, to hackers. The hackers were able to breach Sony’s security while another group, dubbed “Anonymous” mobbed its servers with denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. “Whether those who participated in the denial of services attacks were conspirators or whether they were simply duped into providing cover for a very clever thief, we may never know,” Sony said in its letter to Congress, noting that it still has no idea who hacked its systems. A total of 101 million accounts across Sony’s multiple networks were compromised as Sony became the “victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyberattack designed to steal personal and credit card information for illegal purposes,” the company said. According to The Wall Street Journal, 12.3 million credit card numbers were stolen, 5.6 million of which belonged to users in the United States. So far Sony has not confirmed that the credit card numbers have been used illegally. The firm hopes to get its gaming networks back online as soon as possible.

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26 Comments

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  • Anonymous

    Check the job ads for a new Sony IT director. Maybe a new post of IT Security Manager.

  • mroN

    They should’ve had Apple take care of their security. Apple never gets any malware, viruses, hacker attacks, etc. They’re invincible.

    • Sefiroh

      i will assume you are joking because if apple was so invincible there would be no jailbroken iphones or ipads. hackers can do and get to whatever they want. if they wish.

      • mroN

        lalalaa.. Why do you speak of such foolishness.

      • http://twitter.com/5murfette Mr Smurf

        Your trolling skills are pretty ok.

    • Anonymous

      No system is invincible. That said, Apple is pretty secure (and it’s not just because of the fallacious argument that the market share is so low), although it and Windows 7 are pretty much even. A lot has changed since the days when it was OSX vs. XP. Most things are sandboxed these days in such a way that a user has to click “OK” or some such to allow something nefarious to happen, pinning much of the blame on user error.

      That said, if a skilled hacker wants to, especially when driven by a criminal motive, they can get into your system. I mean, even military-grade systems get hacked. What decently-secure OS’s like OSX and Windows 7 do is provide pretty good protection from the “shotgun approach” of malware.

    • Guest

      I hate when people argue mac’s don’t get viruses when they no idea what they’re talking about. As mac’s get more popular they’ll have as many (or more) viruses as a windows pc.

      • Peter Goesinya

        Pretty muc. No one ever credated anything to compromise macs beacuse up until the Iphone movement… nobody gave a shit about macs beside some douche in a studio apartment painting pictures of life.

      • Anonymous

        Fallacious argument. OSX, being built on UNIX, is very secure. While there are ways to compromise the system, self-spreading “viruses” have never been in the wild. Most proof-of-concepts still require some user input, including have Admin rights.

        Apple is one of the largest PC manufacturers, has close to 10% market share for OS X, and controls the majority of profits, meaning their consumers are often more affluent and bigger targets.

        It’s not that it can’t be hacked. All systems can. Viruses like those circa 1995-2005 are a different matter, though; even Windows 7 is very secure for viruses. Malware is easier to get, but still relies on user error or ignorance mostly.

      • Noops

        I’m pretty sure mron is trolling.. Mron is norm spelled backwards. O boy

      • Anonymous

        Lol. I was reading it as “moron” anyway.

  • 1T2dirtnap

    GEOHOT retaliation? I’m pretty sure Sony will spend millions, maybe even billions fixing this. Class action anyone?

  • http://twitter.com/SpideyRules99 Scott Curry

    “victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyberattack designed to steal personal and credit card information for illegal purposes,”

    How do THEY know what the purposes of stealing the information was???

    • KCRic

      Because they are selling it.

      Maybe it’s just me but I’m pretty sure that’s a dead giveaway.

  • fr3dd0

    there are a bunch of congressional kids bitching about not being able to play and they are now bothering their parents. look out sony.

    • Timber

      I don’t want to play, I’d just like to use Netflix without it telling me the Playstation Network is down.

  • http://twitter.com/AngstKeiner AngstKeiner

    LOL, you beat me to it.

    I was about to say maybe because “Stealing” is illegal.

    e.g. Stealing Credit card information (or any other for that matter) has already met the criteria for the purpose of illegal activity.

  • Anonymous

    A congressional inquiry? Are you freaking kidding me? The U.S. government put together and is paying millions of dollars to a group of people to sit around, talk about what happened (for 5 months), tell Sony to increase their security, dish out a slap on the hand, then sweep it under the rug. Is this inquiry even necessary? We’re paying these people to do nothing. They’re going to tell Sony to do stuff that Sony would already do, anyway.

    They’re not going to find the people that are responsible. Those guys just took of with your money. You’re not gonna see it or them ever again. So, the banks are going to have to pay for fraudulent charges that were made from peoples’ compromised credit cards. Then, the banks are going to be hurting because they’re out millions of dollars, so they’re going to need a bail-out from the government. It’s a never-ending cycle!

    My question is: when is there going to be a congressional inquiry about all the money that the U.S. government frivolously pisses away?! They need inquiries for everything, but they refuse to undertake any accountability for the money they steal from the U.S. taxpayer.

    This is pointless. It’s a horse and pony show. It’s like going to a flea circus. It’s another way for the government to pointlessly spend your money, and John Q. Public is going to have to pick up the tab.

    The way our economy is and our national debt is, we don’t have the money for congressional inquiries. The U.S. government doesn’t even have money to go out to lunch, much less drop millions (possibly billions) of dollars on a stupid investigation that is going to turn up zero results.

    • Anonymous

      12.X million people, of which are 5.6 million Americans are now in a position where they may have identity theft or fraud committed under their name. There had better be investigations and Sony had better co-operate.

      • Anonymous

        Yes, you’re right. The government has all these peoples’ best interest in mind. What flavor of Kool-Aid are you dining on tonight?

      • Anonymous

        Whatever colour of Kool-Aid was bought without me knowing because of poor security allowing my credit card info out?

      • Anonymous

        Fail

  • Skyy_flyer

    Do people tend to forget that it was hackers who illegally exploited the flaw in Sony’s network? I’m not saying to not be mad at Sony, but do spread blame around. Either that or I hope somebody breaks into your house and steals all your stuff, after all it’s not the robber’s at fault. It was you and the security/alarm company and police for not preventing it.

  • Noone

    Don’t piss off hackers nuff said.. Corporate rules do not apply to these class segment of individuals.

  • Winski

    So let’s see…. The old saying ‘firing will continue from the top down until the hacking stops AND each stolen identity account is paid $ 1 Million…. OR …. Sony goes out of business!!!

  • Sarcasm

    Odd my xbox live has never been down in the many years I have used it..

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