According to NewYork Times report, security researchers have said that they had seen discussions on underground Internet forums indicating that the hackers who infiltrated the Sony PlayStation Network last week may have made off with the credit card numbers of Sony customers. Sony has already accepted the breach in its networks and a possibility of credit card data being stolen with it.
The comments indicated that the hackers had a database that included customer names, addresses, usernames, passwords and as many as 2.2 million credit card numbers, the researchers said. Kevin Stevens, senior threat researcher at the security firm Trend Micro, said he had seen talk of the database on several hacker forums, including indications that the Sony hackers were hoping to sell the credit card list for upwards of $100,000. Stevens said one forum member told him the hackers had even offered to sell the data back to Sony but did not receive a response from the company.
While these are good enough reasons for any PSN user to be worried at the moment (making Sony’s infamous hack the fourth largest ever reported), Sony is trying to pacify the users’ ire by hinting at a compensation package.
To thank players for their patience, Sony will be hosting special events across its game portfolio. Sony is also working on a “make good” plan for players of the PS3 versions of DC Universe Online and Free Realms. Details will be available soon on the individual game websites and forums.
“We are currently evaluating ways to show appreciation for your extraordinary patience as we work to get these services back online,” Sony said in a statement.
Whether this would pacify the users or not would actually depend on what exactly Sony comes up with as a compensation plan. The Japanese major is already losing its highly loyal users to Microsoft’s Xbox due to this prolonged outage of PSN.
Meanwhile, Sony is also working on a new system software update that will require all users to change their password once PlayStation Network is restored. Sony is expected to provide more details about the new update very soon.
Infosec India 