PSN account holders beware

PSN account holders beware

The group of Internet users calling themselves Anonymous started a war against the giant known as Sony. Their reason was Sony's lawsuit against the hacker known as George "GeoHot" Hotz, who is known as the PS3 Jailbreaker. In their war against Sony, Anon caused issues for PSN users around the world. Once news of this was released, Anon officially backed off and sent out apologies to all those that were afflicted. It was their goal to hurt Sony, and not their customers.

Earlier this week, an external intrusion brought Sony to take down PSN once again. Whilst it remained unsure if it was Anon that was responsibly, Sony was unable to fix things and said that PSN was to remain down whilst they investigated the situation.

Now, here is where you need to pay attention. A new status update informs us that the people that got in to PSN didn't just take your PSN ID, no ... they got everything. From everyone. Here's what they had to say on the update:

"Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained. 

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them, as well."

In other words, keep a close eye on your personal accounts. A very close eye. And immediately report anything out of the ordinary.

Source:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/109568-Sony-Admits-Private-PSN-Info-Has-Been-Stolen-All-Of-It
Status update -  http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/04/26/update-on-playstation-network-and-qriocity/