Sony PS3 network was out-of-date and unpatched

[bassethound]

Security, they have heard of it

Sony's PS3 network was practically begging to be hacked, an insecurity expert told a US congress subcommittee.

Dr. Gene Spafford of Purdue University said that Sony was using outdated software on its servers. One was an ancient Apache Web server that did not have a firewall installed. What was worse was that the outfit knew about it months in advance of the recent security breaches and did nothing about it.

Spafford said that security experts monitoring open Internet forums learned months ago. The problem was "reported in an open forum monitored by Sony employees" two to three months prior to the recent security breaches.

Sony was invited to participate in the hearing, but declined to attend. In a letter to the committee, Sony said it has added automated software monitoring and enhanced data security and encryption to its systems in the wake of the recent security breaches.

However publically it is blaming the hacker group Anonymous for the attack. Apparently Sony thinks that the outfit's DoS attacks, which stopped days before the attack, were a smokescreen, Anonymous has denied turning over Sony's data for profit and said it was not its style.

[bassethound]

Our heart bleeds for you guys

One of the groups of people who where badly hit in the PS3 network crash appear to be other teams of hackers.

According to the NYTimes blog those hackers who had been doing a roaring trade stealing credit card numbers and personal identities online and then sell and trade this information have seen their business disappear over night.

With the network down, they can't operate. To make matters worse they were making money out of the same names and passwords which are about to flood the market at a much cheaper price. One hacker moaned that he normally could sell a stolen credit card for $5 to $10 online, but that if the millions of cards belonging to PSN users were to become available the price could fall to well below the standard rate to as low as $1 or $2 each.

Sheesh, how will they be able to fund their way through college now? They might have to work at McDonalds like the rest of the world's students.

[bassethound]

Miffed about the outfit's handling of the other two

A hacker group is planning a third attack against Sony over its handling of the other two.

An observer of the Internet Relay Chat channel used by the hackers told Cnet that the hackers are planning a third attack this weekend. The people involved plan to publicize all or some of the information they are able to copy from Sony's servers, which could include customer names, credit card numbers, and addresses. The hackers claim they still have access to some of Sony's servers. (Now that's a first. sub.ed.)

Sony says it doesn't know who orchestrated what it's calling a "highly sophisticated, planned" attack, but thinks the group Anonymous is involved. Anonymous denies this and it would appear that Cnet has found the real hackers.

[punisher]

lol sony gonna be gettin absolutely hammered for this and having to pay out compo left right and centre ... good luck to em