PSN Hacked!

Sony announced Apr 26 on their blog that the PlayStation Network was hacked and the intruders obtained personal information like email/mail addresses, passwords, date of birth, etc. Among the stolen info may be credit card numbers and expiration dates (excluding security codes). Info was stolen for about seventy million customers in PSN and Qriocity (Netflix is not mentioned by Sony, but I bet that log in information may have been taken as well).

Sony recommends to replace CC numbers, usernames and passwords for anything that may have been taken or that is similar in any other services. It is also recommended to keep an eye on bank accounts and credit reports: U.S. residents are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit bureaus. To order your free credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com. Sony Submiteted names and other contact information to the major US credit bureaus free of charge. This will allow US residents to place a "fraud alert" for free to protect your identity.

See below for Contacting the US credit bureaus:
Experian: 888-397-3742; www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
Equifax: 800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
TransUnion: 800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790


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Sony noticed an intrusion on their servers on April 19th and consequently shut down services. Supposedly they weren't certain if the customer database was at stake, but we all know that the intruders that take the risk to accessed such massive servers would have customer cc and identifiable info as part of the top files desired. A lot of people pointed fingers at the faceless hacker association 'Anonymous' for this incident, but Anons insist that they had nothing to do with it as a group despite their previous threats towards Sony. The identity theft, phishing, and scam cases that will emerge because of this incident are far scarier than anything else. I don't know about anyone else, but I did notice that since last week I started to receive a shit load of spam on my email trying to sell me new Bras and giving me jobs located on the other side of the country. I thought this was because I was putting my email on several website because of my trip to Europe, but not I am sure that its because of this breach.

Honestly, I think this is partially Anonymous' fault. Someone must have wanted to gain acceptance to the group by proving their abilities and/or was very pissed at Sony and desired to just make them look bad while obtaining some useful monetary recompense. I can't help but hear Xbox fans long/loud rants in my head about how Xbox Live is so much better; please hold your reins! Microsoft has released a warning about a series of Xbox Live scams that are circulating the network and are fooling people successfully quite frequently. Kotaku website even think that both of these incidents are related to each other, but there is little proof.

In the end I think this shows how much companies like Sony are truly falling behind on terms of security and there is nothing we can do about it. We can only abide by their rules and terms; there really is little choice if someone wishes to stay totally anonymous while being part of a community other than just not joining that community. I believe that most computer savvy people know that a breach this size is almost inevitable and will occur eventually despite new security measures. In my case I barely take any precautions concerning my identifiable information because I believe that if anyone wants to know something about you they will find it in the internet with little to no effort. I mean give me someone's facebook page link & 15 minutes --> I will tell you what websites they visit and where they have accounts, and I am not a hacker....

Are you afraid of identity theft? and what precautions do you take? or do you think that the less you try to protect yourself on the internet the less hackers will target you?

Thanks for reading!

References:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/04/26/update-on-playstation-network-and-qriocity/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/04/27/qa-1-for-playstation-network-and-qriocity-services/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384012,00.asp
http://www.anonnews.org/?p=press&a=item&i=848
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384353,00.asp
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384366,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03079TX1K0000585
http://www.cnet.com/8301-19709_1-20057984-10.html