An alleged hack by a ransomware groupis being investigated bySony. It’s still not clear if the hack has actually taken place, but the group claiming to have breached Sony’s systems say it plans to sell the data by Thursday of this week.
While Sony investigates whether the hack took place at all,PlayStationfans eagerly await further updates. Many are fearful that, if the breach did happen, their personal data may have been caught up in the leak, and could be sold on to malicious parties. The hackers say they got into “all” of Sony’s systems, so it could very well be the case.
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“We are currently investigating the situation, and we have no further comment at this time,” says Sony in a statement, sent toIGN. Given the severity of the matter, we can expect the company to keep quiet until this investigation is complete, and the potential damage has been assessed.
Many fans online are fearful of the ramifications here, wondering if they should change their personal details on their PlayStation accounts. We’ll have to wait and see what safety measures are recommended to players if the hack is legitimate, but right now, any other services that use the same email and password as your PSN account should be updated. If we are looking at the worst-case scenario here, then this could go a long way to keep the breach contained.
There is a glimmer of hope in this story though, as some doubt that the hack is that wide-reaching in the first place - or happened at all. In the evidence the ransomware group provided to try and prove it did have “all” of Sony’s data, it was shown that they had a relatively small amount on hand. In other words, not enough to account for all of the company’s data. This has some doubting that we’re looking at a situation like we had in 2011, with the infamous PlayStation Network outage. This was hugely damaging for Sony and players alike, as personal information on 77 million users was accessed. This led to $171 million in costs for Sony and kept PSN down for almost a month.
Sony would be eager to avoid this happening again, due to both the financial and reputational cost of losing so much data twice. Still, right now, it’s looking like it could be a bluff or at least a far more limited breach than the hackers are letting on, so it’s very possible Sony will return with good news. We’ll just have to wait until its investigation is complete.
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