6 ms·

Sony Confirms PlayStation Network Outage Caused By ‘External Intrusion’

46 points by ssclafani 16y ago

neuro_home 16y ago
Color me not surprised. My email address had been registered on PSN and I got emailed regularly about the activity of this account. My email is very unique so they no doubt registered in an automated method with a database of farmed email addresses. I cut a ticket to Sony and had the account closed. A buddy of mine recently bought a PS3 and was unable to register with any of his email addresses as they all already had been registered to other accounts! What the hell is going on at Sony?
dereg 16y ago
I'm really tired of this. I don't care about anybody's arguments -- regardless of the side -- I just want to be able to play my PS3 in peace.
- cubicle67 16y ago
  serious question (I don't own a PS3 (or an XBOX)) - is it not still playable offline, or is it like these new drm infested games I keep hearing about that require you to be online even for single player games?
  - bennysaurus 16y ago
    The vast majority of games are playable offline, there are some new ones that require you to be connected to the PSN though in order to combat the custom firmware 'threat'.
    - teamonkey 16y ago
      AFAIK all disc-based titles that have a single-player mode must be playable offline in order to be licenced for manufacture. If it tells you that you need to download anything to continue, try detatching the network cable and restarting the device so that it's purely offline.
      - eropple 16y ago
        This is correct, as I understand it. You can disable networking in the XMB for the same effect.
  - meta 16y ago
    I mostly use my ps3 as a Netflix machine now-a-days (new baby) and have been very frustrated with the PSN downtime since Netflix won't let you login to their service unless you are logged into PSN (for some reason). To me that means my TV has seen very little use and I get to watch shows on my 13" mac. :( Overall I am very disappointed in having the PSN be so key to the ps3 experience while the PSN, to me, is pretty worthless and poor even when it is working.
    - joelackner 16y ago
      i'm able to still use netflix after getting 2 login failures on my end... it's a hassle but it's not blocking me from using it entirely.
      - teamonkey 16y ago
        Yeah, just keep retrying the login. Once you see the 'cover' images of the netflix titles you can cancel the login screen and use netflix with no problems.
  - sp332 16y ago
    The PS3 version of Portal 2 has a code to activate your copy of Portal 2 on Steam, and play it on PC or Mac. But you have to log in to PSN and Steam at the same time to sync up the accounts, and so as long as PSN is down, I can't install Portal 2 on my PC. Also, the only reason I play PixelJunk Shooter is for the online leaderboards, which aren't available without PSN.
  - geoffw8 16y ago
    Yes you can, but offline play and multiplayer games are non-comparable!
    - snes 16y ago
      It's a good excuse to visit someone in person.
      - geoffw8 16y ago
        Not if you've been out in the sun, drinking for pretty much four days with... gasp... other people
  - markkanof 16y ago
    I use Netflix and Hulu Plus for all of my television watching (I don't have cable tv). Both of these seem to be tied somehow to the playstation network login, even though they use non playstation network credentials to actually authenticate me as a paying user. As mentioned below, Netflix still works, but with an annoying sequence of failed login attempts before letting you in and Hulu sometimes works with the same process sometimes doesn't work at all. So while it's obviously not the end of the world, it is extremely frustrating to sit down to relax and watch a show and to be told that you just can't because of the playstation network, not because either of the content services arnen't working. I think the biggest problem is that Sony has been totally opaque throughout the whole process. This has been going on for more than a WEEK now, not just two days, and until the blog post had not acknowledge in any way that there was a problem. Even though message boards were littered with people reporting problems.
    - cubicle67 16y ago
      I had no idea... thanks for the answers
- trotsky 16y ago
  It's hard to believe that anyone running such a substantial service really sees shutting it down for forensic purposes to be a reasonable coarse of action. It is generally quite unlikely that such investigations will yield arrests if you're playing the averages. I'm familiar with a number of substantial intrusions into services larger or more significant than the PSN that never resulted in any shutdowns. The only example that comes to mind that supports this precedent is the Euro carbon market shutdown, but that occurred because the exchange had clear indications that other customer accounts were compromised and they would have been potentially open to more theft. I wonder if this isn't something more like: hacker discovered --> recovery team switches to hot redundant systems --> everything falls down due to systems/recovery failure or lack of testing.
extension 16y ago
Two days.. wow. We may have reached the tipping point where the threat of black hat retaliation can influence even the most powerful corporations. It's a shame it's come to that, but it's the predictable result of a legal system that has utterly failed a large segment of the public. Corporations write laws and use the civil courts as a weapon. Nobody can even afford to defend themselves. For those who can't live with the injustice, there aren't many options.
- CamperBob 16y ago
  Corporations write laws and use the civil courts as a weapon. Nobody can even afford to defend themselves. For those who can't live with the injustice, there aren't many options. And you can bet that Sony's counterattack will involve buying a few more of those laws.
  - sigzero 16y ago
    So you are somehow justifying this illegal activity to make it "right". It isn't right and nobody should condone that type of behavior.
    - sp332 16y ago
      Of course it's right. A wronged person has a right to have those wrongs redressed. That's fundamental. The legal system is an artificial construct designed to facilitate the process in a civil manner. But if the legal system isn't working, that doesn't mean that you no longer have that right. And it doesn't mean that whoever wronged you should get off scot-free. The redress will have to be through extralegal channels.
      - eropple 16y ago
        Sorry, but this crap long ago passed "redressing a wrong" and went right into piracy and network attacks. There are ways for people with cracked PS3s to access the dev channel and directly pirate titles. Sony's fault for having an insecure system? Sure (and I'd bet that's why their network is currently down), but at this point there is precious little argument that they're "redressing a wrong." You can already run OtherOS and still access PSN; cracking the development servers has no legitimate use. At this point it's full-on in asshat territory, and people like me (who own PS3s and don't really give a damn about people who can't install Linux on the 3,000th device they own) are getting it in the shorts because of it.
vertice 16y ago
I feel that there is something in the ps3 scene that might have triggered this, that nobody is actually mentioning. Recently a custom firmware (rebug) was released that allowed PS3's with hacked firmware to connect to the developer only version of the PSN used for testing and development. Even more so, they have figured out how to trick the dev PSN to allow them to 'buy' PSN games. They also figured out how to break out of the sandbox with certain games like the call of duty series, to allow patched games to play with regular players. I personally suspect that this is the intrusion that they are referring to, and they are busy retooling the network to stop this from being possible.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
So Sony starts a war with hackers, we'll see how this plays out. Maybe I'll go get some popcorn.
thehodge 16y ago
Sounds a bit silly but could Sony be hosting some of the elements of the PSN on EC2 and this is just a PR story to pass the buck... the dates seem a little too similar to me..
- chc 16y ago
  A PR story? Those are usually meant to give good PR, not make your platform look insecure and unstable. I don't see how it would be in Sony's interests to pretend the widely publicized Amazon outage had nothing to to with its problems and instead make up a story about how its security had been breached.
  - thehodge 16y ago
    We may see it differently, from my point of view its much easier for Sony to blame this on anon as a) there is a known conflict already and its very simple to point the finger b) it hides the fact that a critical part of there system is on a 3rd party service with no contingency plan / backups.. I haven't read anywhere about security breached all I've seen is DDOS and thats exactly what anon are known for.

46 points by ssclafani 16y ago

Color me not surprised. My email address had been registered on PSN and I got emailed regularly about the activity of this account. My email is very unique so they no doubt registered in an automated method with a database of farmed email addresses. I cut a ticket to Sony and had the account closed. A buddy of mine recently bought a PS3 and was unable to register with any of his email addresses as they all already had been registered to other accounts! What the hell is going on at Sony?

dereg 16y ago

I'm really tired of this. I don't care about anybody's arguments -- regardless of the side -- I just want to be able to play my PS3 in peace.

cubicle67 16y ago
serious question (I don't own a PS3 (or an XBOX)) - is it not still playable offline, or is it like these new drm infested games I keep hearing about that require you to be online even for single player games?
- bennysaurus 16y ago
  The vast majority of games are playable offline, there are some new ones that require you to be connected to the PSN though in order to combat the custom firmware 'threat'.
  - teamonkey 16y ago
    AFAIK all disc-based titles that have a single-player mode must be playable offline in order to be licenced for manufacture. If it tells you that you need to download anything to continue, try detatching the network cable and restarting the device so that it's purely offline.
    - eropple 16y ago
      This is correct, as I understand it. You can disable networking in the XMB for the same effect.
- meta 16y ago
  I mostly use my ps3 as a Netflix machine now-a-days (new baby) and have been very frustrated with the PSN downtime since Netflix won't let you login to their service unless you are logged into PSN (for some reason). To me that means my TV has seen very little use and I get to watch shows on my 13" mac. :( Overall I am very disappointed in having the PSN be so key to the ps3 experience while the PSN, to me, is pretty worthless and poor even when it is working.
  - joelackner 16y ago
    i'm able to still use netflix after getting 2 login failures on my end... it's a hassle but it's not blocking me from using it entirely.
    - teamonkey 16y ago
      Yeah, just keep retrying the login. Once you see the 'cover' images of the netflix titles you can cancel the login screen and use netflix with no problems.
- sp332 16y ago
  The PS3 version of Portal 2 has a code to activate your copy of Portal 2 on Steam, and play it on PC or Mac. But you have to log in to PSN and Steam at the same time to sync up the accounts, and so as long as PSN is down, I can't install Portal 2 on my PC. Also, the only reason I play PixelJunk Shooter is for the online leaderboards, which aren't available without PSN.
- geoffw8 16y ago
  Yes you can, but offline play and multiplayer games are non-comparable!
  - snes 16y ago
    It's a good excuse to visit someone in person.
    - geoffw8 16y ago
      Not if you've been out in the sun, drinking for pretty much four days with... gasp... other people
- markkanof 16y ago
  I use Netflix and Hulu Plus for all of my television watching (I don't have cable tv). Both of these seem to be tied somehow to the playstation network login, even though they use non playstation network credentials to actually authenticate me as a paying user. As mentioned below, Netflix still works, but with an annoying sequence of failed login attempts before letting you in and Hulu sometimes works with the same process sometimes doesn't work at all. So while it's obviously not the end of the world, it is extremely frustrating to sit down to relax and watch a show and to be told that you just can't because of the playstation network, not because either of the content services arnen't working. I think the biggest problem is that Sony has been totally opaque throughout the whole process. This has been going on for more than a WEEK now, not just two days, and until the blog post had not acknowledge in any way that there was a problem. Even though message boards were littered with people reporting problems.
  - cubicle67 16y ago
    I had no idea... thanks for the answers
trotsky 16y ago
It's hard to believe that anyone running such a substantial service really sees shutting it down for forensic purposes to be a reasonable coarse of action. It is generally quite unlikely that such investigations will yield arrests if you're playing the averages. I'm familiar with a number of substantial intrusions into services larger or more significant than the PSN that never resulted in any shutdowns. The only example that comes to mind that supports this precedent is the Euro carbon market shutdown, but that occurred because the exchange had clear indications that other customer accounts were compromised and they would have been potentially open to more theft. I wonder if this isn't something more like: hacker discovered --> recovery team switches to hot redundant systems --> everything falls down due to systems/recovery failure or lack of testing.

extension 16y ago

Two days.. wow. We may have reached the tipping point where the threat of black hat retaliation can influence even the most powerful corporations. It's a shame it's come to that, but it's the predictable result of a legal system that has utterly failed a large segment of the public. Corporations write laws and use the civil courts as a weapon. Nobody can even afford to defend themselves. For those who can't live with the injustice, there aren't many options.

CamperBob 16y ago
Corporations write laws and use the civil courts as a weapon. Nobody can even afford to defend themselves. For those who can't live with the injustice, there aren't many options. And you can bet that Sony's counterattack will involve buying a few more of those laws.
- sigzero 16y ago
  So you are somehow justifying this illegal activity to make it "right". It isn't right and nobody should condone that type of behavior.
  - sp332 16y ago
    Of course it's right. A wronged person has a right to have those wrongs redressed. That's fundamental. The legal system is an artificial construct designed to facilitate the process in a civil manner. But if the legal system isn't working, that doesn't mean that you no longer have that right. And it doesn't mean that whoever wronged you should get off scot-free. The redress will have to be through extralegal channels.
    - eropple 16y ago
      Sorry, but this crap long ago passed "redressing a wrong" and went right into piracy and network attacks. There are ways for people with cracked PS3s to access the dev channel and directly pirate titles. Sony's fault for having an insecure system? Sure (and I'd bet that's why their network is currently down), but at this point there is precious little argument that they're "redressing a wrong." You can already run OtherOS and still access PSN; cracking the development servers has no legitimate use. At this point it's full-on in asshat territory, and people like me (who own PS3s and don't really give a damn about people who can't install Linux on the 3,000th device they own) are getting it in the shorts because of it.

vertice 16y ago

I feel that there is something in the ps3 scene that might have triggered this, that nobody is actually mentioning. Recently a custom firmware (rebug) was released that allowed PS3's with hacked firmware to connect to the developer only version of the PSN used for testing and development. Even more so, they have figured out how to trick the dev PSN to allow them to 'buy' PSN games. They also figured out how to break out of the sandbox with certain games like the call of duty series, to allow patched games to play with regular players. I personally suspect that this is the intrusion that they are referring to, and they are busy retooling the network to stop this from being possible.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

So Sony starts a war with hackers, we'll see how this plays out. Maybe I'll go get some popcorn.

thehodge 16y ago

Sounds a bit silly but could Sony be hosting some of the elements of the PSN on EC2 and this is just a PR story to pass the buck... the dates seem a little too similar to me..

chc 16y ago
A PR story? Those are usually meant to give good PR, not make your platform look insecure and unstable. I don't see how it would be in Sony's interests to pretend the widely publicized Amazon outage had nothing to to with its problems and instead make up a story about how its security had been breached.
- thehodge 16y ago
  We may see it differently, from my point of view its much easier for Sony to blame this on anon as a) there is a known conflict already and its very simple to point the finger b) it hides the fact that a critical part of there system is on a 3rd party service with no contingency plan / backups.. I haven't read anywhere about security breached all I've seen is DDOS and thats exactly what anon are known for.