Sony - "Your personal details may have been compromised"

[FlipMode]

Good to hear ^^.
So I know that some people here do have a PS3 and have them online, now if you are regularly on it, you may have noticed that it has been down for maintenance, for about a week now. No big deal, I thought.
But today I got an E-mail from them saying this...
[quote]Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer,
We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:
1) Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;
2) Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and
3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by re-building our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.
We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable.
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/province, zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity passwords 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 that credit card data was taken at this time, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, to be on the safe side we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may also 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, tax identification or similar 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.
To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant to review your account statements and to monitor your credit or similar types of reports.
We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of this incident, and we regret any inconvenience. Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority. Please check http://www.eu.playstation.com/psnoutage should you have any additional questions.
Sincerely,
Sony Network Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment Teams
Sony Network Entertainment Europe Limited (formerly known as PlayStation Network Europe Limited) is a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited the data controller for PlayStation Network/Qriocity personal data.[/quote]

TL,DR - Sony said the reason for the maintenance was that the PlayStation Network was illegally hacked into, and now all of their customer personal details from phone numbers, addresses and of course, credit card info may now be in the possession of an unknown cyber criminal. Just thought I would let other PS3 users know, or see if anyone else got this E-Mail?

[Wrightfan]

Didn't get an email but saw it on their blog. They haven't said credit card info was stolen but it is "possible."

I had my credit card on there. Needless to say I'm not a happy camper. Also, there's rumors that PS+ users aren't getting comped but it's complete hearsay right now.

[Panda-chan]

I heard about this 8( Thank goodness I don't have a PS3 lol.

[Daenerys]

I heard about that this evening.

[quote="Amanda"]I heard about this 8( Thank goodness I don't have a PS3 lol.[/quote]
Just what I would say ^^

[Wrightfan]

So far, nothing indicates my credit card data was stolen.

Still contemplating trading in my PS3 though.

[FlipMode]

For what? If you do that and get a 360, there is no guarantee that it would not get the same thing. Anything you out your personal details into, is a potential target for hackers.
People are so quickly blaming Sony for this >.>.

As for no one getting compensation, I don't expect any. And for PS+ users, they will get less than £1 here. They pay £40 a year for access to additional content, that will be there still when PSN goes back up and so they haven't lost anything that they paid for. And even if so £40 a year, 365 days a year... even if it is off for 14 days, + users are entitled to very little compensation (I have a lot more change in my pocket now than what + users are missing out on in this.) Only thing it would do is give Sony a bit of positive PR, which would do very little for them right now anyway :D

[CastielOwnsYou]

I am a little bit annoyed but only because I can't sign into my PSN account and downloading updates doesn't seem to be working. As for credit card info I'm pretty sure I didn't put it down in the first place.

[Wrightfan]

[quote="FlipMode"]For what? If you do that and get a 360, there is no guarantee that it would not get the same thing. Anything you out your personal details into, is a potential target for hackers.
People are so quickly blaming Sony for this >.>.

As for no one getting compensation, I don't expect any. And for PS+ users, they will get less than £1 here. They pay £40 a year for access to additional content, that will be there still when PSN goes back up and so they haven't lost anything that they paid for. And even if so £40 a year, 365 days a year... even if it is off for 14 days, + users are entitled to very little compensation (I have a lot more change in my pocket now than what + users are missing out on in this.) Only thing it would do is give Sony a bit of positive PR, which would do very little for them right now anyway [/quote]

It's not 100% their fault. Part of the reason too is that I really want to get away from video games somewhat. This generation of systems has just been...meh.

[Mark]

[quote="FlipMode"]For what? If you do that and get a 360, there is no guarantee that it would not get the same thing. Anything you out your personal details into, is a potential target for hackers.
People are so quickly blaming Sony for this >.>.[/quote]

That's true Although us Xbox users do pay £40 a year for the privelage of using Xbox Live so Microsoft actually take some care to encrypt the data. Not to say it couldn't be hacked though - it just makes me feel safer. As they say, you get what you pay for...

Also, I like the Microsoft Points system for that reason. Yes, they're arbitrary and they're sold in unhelpful denominations, but Microsoft don't even know my credit card details - I buy all my MS Points and XBL subs in code form and then input them...

[FlipMode]

^ PSN has that too with pre paid PSN cards, but it uses real money, so if you buy £5 card, you get exactly £5.

And our credit card information was encrypted, it is the other information that Sony say was not encrypted, but it was still behind a high tech security system.

I do not really see where the you get what you pay for quote applies to this, if you take say windows and Linux, one is free and the other costs money right? Yet those are both suspect to hacking, the same with banks as well, I do not pay my bank to store my money but I know full well it can be hacked into and stolen from.