Hasta La Gadget!

Whoops. If you’ll recall, Sony held what can only be described as an emergency press event in Japan a week ago in order to issue a number of assurances about the resumption of service as it relates to the PlayStation Network and Qriocity. Seven days later, things are still as dead as they were pre-Cinco de Mayo. This evening, the company’s Senior Director of Corporate Communications Patrick Seybold punched out a quick update to let the world know that they could actually leave the house and find something else to entertain ’em — like it or not, PSN isn’t coming back online today. The reason? On May 1st, Sony was apparently “unaware of the extent of the attack on Sony Online Entertainment servers,” and now, it’s spinning its wheels in order to restore security on the network and “ensure” that user data is safe. Mr. Seybold seems to understand that you’re overly anxious about getting back into the swing of things, and he’s even going so far as to ask your trust that Sony’s doing “everything [it] can” to get the lights blinking once more. Oh, and if you were planning on visiting that source link just to find the new ETA… don’t. Sony’s planning to update you “as soon as it can.”

[Thanks, Alex]

Sony misses promised PlayStation Network and Qriocity restoration date, begs for more patience originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 May 2011 03:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are you starting to feel bad for Sony yet? No? Maybe this will change your mind. Sony Online Entertainment has, apparently, been the victim of another breach that has, according to Nikkei.com, resulted in the release of 12,700 credit card numbers — and presumably some other information as well. 4,300 of those credit card numbers are said to be Japanese, but no saying how many are American. Thankfully, data is said to be from 2007, minimizing the number of still-valid credit cards exposed making us wonder if perhaps this wasn’t some sort of backup that was exposed. Regardless, SOE’s online services were taken offline earlier today and, well, now we know why. We’re presently expecting further information from the company but, until then, feel free to continue cowering in the corner and quietly sobbing onto your compromised credit cards.

[Warning: subscription required]

Update: According to the Wall Street Journal, Sony has also confirmed that the latest attack accessed personal information for a staggering 24.6 million accounts. Such info includes names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, gender, date of birth, login ID, and hashed passwords. Ruh roh. Full press release after the break.

Continue reading Sony woes continue as SOE confirms data breach (update: 24.6 million accounts affected)

Sony woes continue as SOE confirms data breach (update: 24.6 million accounts affected) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 20:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony’s PlayStation Network has been down for over a week, and it’s a royal mess for all involved — as you’ve no doubt heard, an external intrusion by unknown hackers compromised the personal information (supposedly including everything but credit card numbers) of potentially millions of users. This morning, Sony VP Kaz Hirai (formerly of the PlayStation division) will address the world from the company’s headquarters in Japan, and our friends at Engadget Japanese are on the scene to bring us first-hand details in just a few minutes. Additionally, there appears to be an official livestream that will begin at 1AM ET, so keep it locked right here and potentially find some video at our source link.

Update: We’re hearing that Sony’s “goodwill gesture” may not be an incredibly significant one — affected users can expect a free 30-day subscription to PlayStation Plus and a free software download of some sort, while Qriocity customers will get an extra 30 days of service on the house.

Update 2: As many as 10 million credit card numbers may have been exposed, though Sony says it has no proof that any actually have been compromised, and claims that it’s received no reports of credit card fraud thus far. It is, however, working with the FBI to investigate the hack.

2:00 JST: The show’s begun — following a little bit of Mozart, Sony has trotted out three solemn-looking executives. More updates after the break.

Continue reading Sony’s Kaz Hirai addresses PlayStation Network hack, we’re liveblogging

Sony’s Kaz Hirai addresses PlayStation Network hack, we’re liveblogging originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 May 2011 00:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It started on a quiet Wednesday night, with PlayStation gamers finding their Network unresponsive to their login attempts, and now continues well into its third day. Sony has now finally shed some light on the problems it’s been having with PSN and, to nobody’s surprise, the culprit for its troubles has been identified as “an external intrusion.” The current downtime for PSN is the second of its kind this month, with the Anonymous group of online crusaders claiming responsibility for the first. Sony now intends to keep both PSN and its Qriocity music streaming service offline until it can pinpoint the vulnerability that has been exploited and put a stop to it. Skip past the break for the company’s full statement.

Update: The PlayStation Blog has added an update to its US portal this evening that suggests the service disruption may continue for a good while longer — according to Sony’s Patrick Seybold, the company is “rebuilding our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure,” and working non-stop to do so.

[Thanks, Christian and Joe]

Continue reading PlayStation Network outage caused by ‘external intrusion,’ continues for third day

PlayStation Network outage caused by ‘external intrusion,’ continues for third day originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Apr 2011 10:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you didn’t already have enough potential app privacy leaks to worry about, here’s one more — Android Police discovered that Skype’s Android client leaves your personal data wide open to assault. The publication reports that the app has SQLite3 databases where all your info and chat logs are stored, and that Skype forgot to encrypt the files or enforce permissions, which seems to be a decision akin to leaving keys hanging out of the door.

Basically, that means a rogue app could grab all your data and phone home — an app much like Skypwned. That’s a test program Android Police built to prove the vulnerability exists, and boy, oh boy does it work — despite only asking for basic Android storage and phone permissions, it instantly displayed our full name, phone number, email addresses and a list of all our contacts without requiring so much as a username to figure it out. Android Police says Skype is investigating the issue now, but if you want to give the VoIP company an extra little push we’re sure it couldn’t hurt.

Skype for Android vulnerable to hack that compromises personal info originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 22:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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