PSN Hacked = My Gmail Hacked

Botchweed: "So I like most of you am on the Playstation Network, foolishly trusting my details with a multi national corporation. This morning I went to log into my Gmail account which is the same account that is tied to my Playstation Network account, and low and behold I couldn’t log into it and needed to undergo phone verification due to unusual activity. This is the same account that I had logged into just 8 hours prior."

[iamnsuperman]

Idiot for using the same password

edit: Why disagree i am not saying he should apologies to Sony.....still shouldn't reuse a password for you emails and for your PSN especially if the email is the one used to sign in. That is just stupid

[EddyD]

Maybe I am, but when I have hundreds of accounts online I share about 5 different passwords out between them. The fact that a Google site and a Sony site shared the same details I would have thought was fine.

It's my bad for not expecting Sony to have such piss poor security that they can get hacked.

[Temporary_Name]

Yeah you should apologize to Sony for not expecting it. It's all your fault PSN got hacked and Sony has done the best it can to protect you!

/sarcasm

[imvix]

I think its common for people to only have 2-3 different passwords. in this day and age there are so many places we subscribe to, keeping a different password for every place would be impossible.

[Baka-akaB]

Sorry but however incompetent sony might indeed be , it's foolish to use the same password like that .

Even without psn hacked , the day one of your account would have been compromised , you'd been screwed everywhere .

@above

Except even for the lazy ones , you can store them in your browser and other places .

[captain-obvious]

i like how only PPL with blogs and websites get those kind of things

looking for hits maybe ???

and why the hell would anyone hack your "FREE" Gmail account when they just can get you money with the credit card ??

[Millah]

Yes, we all realize that we shouldn't use the same passwords. But realistically, how feasible is it to have a different password for every site. And how is it the consumers fault for trusting Sony with their login information? This would have totally not been an issue for this guy if Sony had made people aware of the POTENTIAL THREAT a week ago. Key word being potential. Sony didn't have to say outright that the information was compromised, but it would have been very helpful to let them know that the threat was there, and that they were hiring an outside firm to investigate it and confirm whether it had been compromised. Instead they waited until they were completely sure before informing anyone a week later, which is ages in the world of cyber crime.

If Sony had let people know to change all their passwords due to a potential threat a week ago, this wouldn't have been nearly as bit of an issue as it is now. It also would ave had a much lesser impact on their image.

[Arksine]

Sony needs to bear responsibility, but you were careless. Sony is not the first, nor will it be the last, major online merchant to be hacked. If you want to protect yourself you need a password safe such as Keepass.

You aren't alone, I learned this the hard way six months ago. And despite generating seperate, strong paswords for every online account that I have which stores critical data my Credit Card was still compromised by recent hack into a major online retailer.

Bottom line, the only way to protect yourself on today's internet is to generate strong passwords for every account you have, and to constantly monitor these accounts for intrusions.

[hay]

People hacking PSN network just to spam some random people emails? Either hackers are biggest morons ever existed or it's fake/not related.

[AAACE5]

My yahoo account was hacked! It shocked me because I use complex passwords. I have has the same password on my yahoo account for years, then as this happened, I got a message from yahoo saying my account was hacked. Now I know where the leak came from!

[Bear_Grylls]

I was reading up till "This morning I went to log into my Gmail account"

Wait a minute, you use Gmail???

This has to be fake, no-one uses Gmail.

It is recognized by 99% of email providers as spam.

[rockleex]

It happened to me too. My PSN account is not even activated through my Gmail account though so I doubt they're related.

I also use a different password for my Google account.

But if you search on Google about this problem, it seems like this has been happening to a lot of people for at least two years now.

Btw, I know other PSN and Gmail users who haven't even experienced this.

[ClimateKaren]

LastPass my friend. Download it. I had to do it after Gawker media left all out info sitting out there for the taking. It will generate strong and unique passwords for each site and store them remotely. You can access the PWs pretty much anywhere, you just need to remember your lastpass login and PW. There is even an Android app for it.

[darksied]

Even though it seems like it, this is NOT related because it happened to a friend of mine too who does NOT have a playstation. Her address book all got sent this weird email too. I got one from here and it was pretty strange.

There's been a rash of these hacks going around. About 1 month ago, I received emails from Best Buy, Capital One, Chase, Bank of America, Meijer, and a bunch of others saying their info was hacked too and my personal info and email address were taken. It's not just sony and google, there's a lot of these cases going on right now.

Personally I think they should all go to jail, for as long as the law allows. Then they should never be able to touch any computer-related device ever again.

Again, and I promise you, this has nothing to do with PSN because at least this one friend of mine who had her gmail hacked had NO psn account (doesn't own a ps3).

[bobrea]

Give me a fucking break. You act like hacking is some walk int he park that anyone can do. It took almost 5 years for Sony top get hacked. The security is pretty damn good, and unfortunately for you, so are the hackers.

[HeroComplex]

One should NEVER use their email password to log onto accounts on Internet sites. You're basically giving out access to your email to many different sites and hoping they all protect your information. I understand that people only want to remember a few passwords (I only use 4), but a person's email address is usually used as the login name for most sites, or their email is entered while creating an account. To then use your email password to log onto these sites means that every admin on each site potentially has access to your email, or a hacker of any one of the sites would have access.

Even government sites get hacked, so it's something everyone needs to take into consideration. Sorry EddyD, I have no sympathy for your email issues. I do feel bad for those having problems with their credit card information.

[I_find_it_funny]

I use ~20 different password, and they are easy to remember. It's a little system about how to have different passwords and remember them I read about ti somewhere, it's really effective.

[xAlmostPro]

@EddyD People like you boggle my mind seriously.

How is sony being hacked mean they have "piss poor security" ? The whole point of a hack is to bypass security and access what you're not supposed to.

I'm really getting fed up with articles like this acting like everyones details WERE accessed when only aroun 3 people have mentioned cards being used.. although those 3 only mentioned it after the announcement because of course hackers who have people's details would wait for sony to announce such thing before emptying somebodies account lol.

Fact is sony could have had "better" security, that doesn't mean they are at fault because a raging group of nerds decided to attack them and the networks they own. If the government can be hacked, if mastercard can be hacked then sony can be hacked.

Your gmail could be hacked if google was attacked. The problem is you don't know when hackers are going to strike, and like i said the whole point of hacking is to bypass security, even if sony had used better methods if somebody really wanted to they would still have found a way. Stop being so narrowminded.

Fancy buying some of this common sense i so proudly own?.

[the_best_player]

@poor security

no if the hacker is pro they can get into anything.
this only just happened for PS3, it happened for 2 weeks for 360 users when halo 3 can out....

[Temporary_Name]

Yeah, it's not Sony's fault at all. The guy should apologize for using the same password!!!

/sarcasm

[user858621]

yh it makes sense to memorize 100 different passwords for different accounts

/s

@Sikbeta and Baka yh and then when you reinstall windows for whatever reason.... that nice feature goes away.....

[Baka-akaB]

yeah , suddenly people dont know how to store passwords in say ... firefox .

[sorceror171]

You don't need to memorize 100 different passwords. For the critical stuff like email addresses - which are used to validate other things - you use different (and strong) passwords.

Accounts that can access money get different passwords, too.

Forums and stuff you don't care about can have a common password.

Plus, on my phone I have a 'password wallet'. I remember one strong password, and it encrypts and stored all the other ones.

[TOSgamer]

@ Baka-akaB

Yeah, suddenly everyone uses the same computer to log into everything all the time...

[sikbeta]

hey guys, guess what? whenever you enter a password in some site, browsers like FF and Chrome ask you if you want to SAVE that password... pretty crazy I know, but it has been like that for years... :P

Edit:

Ugh, dude, go to preferences, security, pass, let you every password you have and take screenshot of it and save it in a pendrive

O-T

For PSN I use an alternate e-mail account in Yahoo, it has nothing more than the stuff Sony sends to every e-mail, wow, I'm ahead of everything XD ... now seriously, people go change your password, if you want to use one for everything, make sure the pass has at least 8 characters and use letters and numbers...

[Baka-akaB]

@TOSgamer

And suddenly people dont have access to sync features and other progs ?

I guess it really answer the question about those fancy smartphone users actually needing one or just playing angry birds on it :p

@waseem335

dear lord ... backups are for who ? lemmings ?
You've got physical ones AND online ones .

I know it might sounds tedious , but once you are set , it's one thing less to worry about .

Hell some people even prefer the good old paper or printer

[iamnsuperman]

This really shows the people stupid enough to use the same password for important things. I have common passwords for forums and my important details (password and log in details) are in my important file in my draw which uses more complex different passwords. I have some common sense that if one email/PSN/bank is hacked then my others could be to because if I use the same password. Online data is never safe. Sony had a breach of security which is bad and Sony need to sort it out but this moron used the same password for his log in details and his email password. Its people like him which makes cyber crime so easy.

[mrv321]

I still don't see how they stole his password, it is a remarkable coincidence I'd admit that, but I haven't seen millions of other articles.

Now, my understanding of passwords aren't great but it's not like you just enter your password and it goes to a server where it has a list of usernames and password next to one and another it's actually a hex code, recently they HACKED every single password... well the where able to locate and find common digits and letters in a couple passwords such as 'password'. Now he has hundreds of accounts on various websites.

Has anyone ever wondered why their password is never hacked via the server side but rather the user side? Because it's a MILLION times easier. I doubt it was PSN that lead to this hack. I mean c'mon.

1. IF the hackers go his password, why is it only his account we are hearing about?
2. If Sony used 256 bit encryption on important files ( I use 3x 256 encryption at home to give you a idea ) it'd take a hacked 50,955,671,114,250,100,000,000 ,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000 years to get into the files.
3. Sony doesn't use the wbestandard password protection, which they do.

Seriously, will EVERYONE ignore basic internet facts and accept a users one article.

[guigsy]

Unless no one else uses your computer you need to remember your passwords.

[Pekka]

@Baka-akaB: I trust browser even less than any place I log in. I never store passwords on firefox or any other browser, I type them every time. Heck, I sometimes clear all information when I quit browsing. All browsers have a lot of security flaws so storing passwords on browser has very high risk.

[JsonHenry]

I'm pissed because my yahoo account was hacked due to the same reason. (which resulted in them being able to create a dummy WoW account under my battle.net account) I'm not pissed at sony though. The blame lays solely on the bastards that are doing the hacking.

I too had to do the phone verification thing this morning to get it all squared away and back to normal. At least my credit card was being declined by my card issuer due to suspicious activity and I don't have to do anything else but wait for my new cards to come in the mail.

[hoops]

Yes blame him for his account being hacked due to poor security protocols by Sony.

[cyborg6971]

I font get it why wouldanyone hack that when a smart person would have just drained your cc or bank account.
Fish for hits much. I call bullshit on this. And by the look of it the others who are doing the same are getting disagreed with. Other than assuming this has anything to do with psn where is your proof?

[ZeroX9876]

Using the same password EXACT password is not smart, I agree with you, but having multiple different password for every account you have, it's almost impossible. One of my trick is having the same password , BUT putting letters and numbers that are related to what I registered to.
Example: on N4G, if my pass was like "Sony32" I would put "SonyN4G32" or "N4GSony32" or mixed it in the middle "SonyN4G32".

I know it's not the saffest way to do it, but it's a start.

But We can say whatever we want, Sony failed BIG time. I always been a big supporter of sony's product, even before the playstation. I've been buying sony tvs and headphones since a LONG TIME (still have my walkman!!) and I can tell you that I can't defend their lack of security on this matter.

360 fanboys can't say that microsoft are perfect, because maybe in the console departement their not bad, but in the windows OS side, they got some really crazy stuff going on there. But were still using windows on a daily basis and Microsoft are trying their best to secure their OS, so is Sony with PSN.

Sony's lack of experience with online service is probably one problem taht lead to this one and since microsoft are on their 2nd console offering dedicated online service, their more experienced.

All this Geohotz and Anonymous event didn,t help the cause. Sony did some right things on that case, but some were pretty harsh too and Hackers answered back with force. Now Sony is facing breach of trust of many of their consumers and nothing can repair what those hackers has done on this trust.

I hope Sony gets back up and launch the PSN back better than ever, with no overload when COD map pack are out and no more DDoS attack possible. Sony's mentionned cross game chat as a possibility on the new PSN servers. Make it happen! that's one way to repay the consumers. Maybe we don't pay monthly for online service, but if paying 60 $ a year is what it takes to have great online service and security on your personnal info, then so be it!

[Megaton]

It is idiotic to use the same passwords for all your logins these days. I've got unique passwords for pretty much everything. If the Gawker incident didn't teach you this, maybe you'll learn this time.

[Jezuz]

That's not stupid. Some people can't remember all their passwords so they have a universal password cause they're too lazy to write it down.

[saladthieves]

@iamnsuperman

You cannot call him an idiot for doing this. There are some things that you are not considering: when Sony found out that personal data belonging to the users could have been breached, they didn't immediately alert the public. I believe they did this in to further investigate this situation and avoid causing a huge panic that could have turned out wrong...and that would have been bad.

On the other hand, some people did get hacked, so Sony could have and should have alerted the public the moment they learned of this information.

Now, on the password issue, people might prefer to have the same password of the same account being shared by another service because it is easier to remember; so in this case, PSN and Gmail. It is not his fault that his Gmail account got hacked this way. He trusted that this information would be safe and secure with Sony. Unfortunately this did not go according to plan.

What if it were you? How would you know? Remember, Sony took down PSN AFTER learning about the data breach and intrusion. During this time when people had no idea what was going on, a hacker could have hacked your email address without you knowing.

[iamnsuperman]

you can blame him and sony for his gmail being hacked If you use your email address for the PSN make sure it has a different password. He is complaining about his gmail being hacked but it is his fault to for being so naive to use the same password. It is internet protection 101. DO not use the same password for important things because any co-operation can get hacked. Internet security is never 100% safe

[frostypants]

Sony at least has an excuse: they were a victim of hacking. This guy didn't even do the simplest thing imaginable to defend himself. Using the same password for everything defeats most of the purpose.

This would be like running into traffic without looking both ways and getting hit by a car, then blaming the city for having a broken stoplight...

[Leio]

Passwords are like underwear change them often

[Solidus187-SCMilk]

its funny to see the sony apologists pretending like its your fault. Same passwords or different ones, it wouldnt have happened if Sony hadnt failed in the security department.

[redd0r]

Just changed mine, I use the same password on quite a few different places but you know, all of which are massive corporations that you should be able to fucking trust.

[ComboBreaker]

That's what you get for using the same password for everything.

Yes, I already changed mine.
No, my Gmail didn't get hacked.

[EddyD]

Again like I said I use about 5 different ones, just so happened these 2 were the same.

[frostypants]

Why would you link one online account with one password to another online account with the SAME password?

I mean really, c'mon dude...common sense. Stuff gets hacked. At the very best, this is 50% your fault.

Ask yourself this: why do you have 5 different passwords that you use? Answer: because you KNEW this could happen. You know better.

Why do you think Google and Sony are above hacking? Major corporations with tons of money for security get hacked all the time.

EDIT: And you still have no proof that this is remotely related to Sony. Why would someone who stole millions of records of personal data mess around doing childish spam attacks?

[guigsy]

So the hackers aren't to blame for exposing your information, Sony isn't to blame for their frail security setup, it's the user's fault for using a password twice.

[aks100]

That sucks. The moment I heard this happened i changed any passwords that were shared with PSN....hope you got it sorted

[Naiboss]

It's not just the passwords you need to worry about either... if you've used the same security questions it may cause problems.

How many sites use your Mother's maiden name for example?!

[Call_me_Ishmael]

i call bs on this one,why would they take your gmail?

[EddyD]

They spammed my entire contact list with links, and because they couldn't get anything else out of it? I don't know, but for 6 years i've used this account without a problem, then PSN goes tits up and suddenly problem.

[Call_me_Ishmael]

problably just a coincidence,no disrespect but youre just a random nobody like me,they must have a motif to only take your gmail

[Surfaced]

I'm afraid they have bigger fish to fry right now.

Like instead of spamming people's email inboxes with useless junk, they might want to be gathering massive amounts of money from millions of credit cards.

[Baka-akaB]

the point missed is that soon enough any service would face those issues someday , this time well obviously its sony .

Wich stress yet again the need for password variety and/or strong ones

[nevimkdojsem2]

How would they do that? Do you think Sony store our passwords as plain text? A 30 years old Unix OS doesn't store the password itself but its "digest" - the password encoded by a cryptographic hash function. E.g. "fox" becomes (if you use SHA-1 function) "DFCD 3454 BBEA 788A 751A 696C 24D9 7009 CA99 2D17". When you authenticate yourself later it runs your input through this function again and compares the return value with the stored digest. It only works in one direction - it would take years to recreate the original password from the digest.

[gaden_malak]

"They spammed my entire contact list with links, and because they couldn't get anything else out of it? I don't know, but for 6 years i've used this account without a problem, then PSN goes tits up and suddenly problem."

So instead of spending money from CC details they...hack your gmail account to spam?

[Megaton]

I actually think I agree about calling BS on this. Probably coincidence. I've had this same thing happened to a Yahoo account of mine. My dad has had this happen to his Hotmail before. It's just what happens to email accounts when people get into them. They spam the crap outta your contacts. It's one of the reasons why I really don't use email for anything other than registering at websites. I have 1 contact.

[Octo1]

Oh god! Here it comes. Yesterday we got the "Hundreds maybe thousands stolen from credit card due to Sony hack" article and now this. Can't wait to see what next. "My house was burglarized because hackers got a hold of my address through PSN" :/

[koehler83]

Trusting your info to anyone is foolish.

Using the same passwords in different places is also foolish. Take some responsibility.

[user858621]

Dont blame sony its not their fault, its them mean old hackers... :( *sad face* lol

[DragonKnight]

Oh yeah, it's Sony's fault that a hacker hacked them. Shame on them for being just like any online service that is susceptible to hacking. They should know better and have an impenetrable fortress of an online service that none can get through, and have the foresight to know that there are people who use the same password for their email accounts as they do for their PSN accounts despite being told in both areas NOT to use the same passwords for multiple accounts. It's all Sony's fault just like it's a rape victim's fault for being raped. /sarcasm

*sighing facepalm*

[ronwil42]

stop moaning its down to hackers not sony fault

[Tone]

From Sonys EU Blog this morning.

Q.6 Does that mean all users’ information was compromised? Tell us more in details of what personal information leaked.

In terms of possibility, yes. We believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state/province, zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password, login, password security answers, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data may have been obtained, including purchase history and billing address (city, state/province, zip or postal code). If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, it is possible that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may also have been obtained.

NOT GOOD! :(

[mithril]

I share to you a small trick for password.
use algorithm for password. in this exemple the password is : MazGa62u34 and add 2 first character of web site and add at third and last positiion of password.

MazPGa62u34S PSN
MazGGa62u34O Google
MazYGa62u34A Yahoo
MazNGa62u344 N4G

Create your own simple algorithm, generaly, when password database is compromised. The hacker do database of login and password, and a program to try this on many other web site. But don't try manualy each password. but be sure he will try sites like paypal, amazon etc.

[solidboss]

good idea. as for the guy who posted this article im not going to be a douche about it but let this be a lesson that you should have different passwords with every email. you seem to be using the outage of psn as an excuse saying it never happened to you before, honestly it was going to happen sooner or later because if 1 of your accounts got hacked then the hacker got em all. so best bet is to do what the poster above me said.

[Surfaced]

Unrelated.

I think the hackers, right now, care less about giving you spam email, and more about stealing millions of credit card numbers before banking institutions catch on.

[Raendom]

I have a question most people here can answer: Has Sony sent you an email saying your account MAY have been compromised? (I haven't yet)

[joeorc]

well does this answer your Question:

Important information regarding PlayStation Network and Qriocity services‏

Valued PlayStation(R)Network/Qriocity Customer:

We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011,
certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account
information was compromised in connection with an illegal and
unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this
intrusion, we have:

Lmao..I was hit an guess what

the answer is YES an I expected it...

the point being im not crying, yelling stamping my feat..as a matter of fact...this is one of the thing's that i deal with anyway.

I have some friends in the Hacking community my self

hehehe, an its not something that bother's me my credit rating is in the crapper anyway..hahahaha

IM 41 long time Hacker myself. these new guy's though give me a chuckle.

an yes im still going to continue to support Sony why because they make good product's an i happen to like the games.

[whizyup]

The dick pulling Sony is getting around here by sony fanboys is haha worthy. Why are people siding with a corporation over real gamers that have been affected by this?? Unless Sony put an end to all wars, solved our planet's problems, and saved every cat in a tree I don't want to hear it

Most you guys don't even have real issues outside of when PSN wil come back online hahaha

[joeorc]

"The dick pulling Sony is getting around here by sony fanboys is haha worthy. Why are people siding with a corporation over real gamers that have been affected by this?? Unless Sony put an end to all wars, solved our planet's problems, and saved every cat in a tree I don't want to hear it

Most you guys don't even have real issues outside of when PSN wil come back online hahaha "

what's done is done im not crying, not throwing a hissyfit.

real gamer's...real gamers support the games...

Im 41 years old, Hacker an I have been at it for quite a while, why would i support a company..hello because of the games. Im in the Industry..it's one thing to Hack , it's another thing to pitch your IDEA to a GROUP OF venture capital firms TRYING TO GET SOME CHEDDER FOR YOUR NEXT PROJECT.

IF YOUR GAME HAS BEEN DOWNLOADED MORE TIMES THAN IT HAS SOLD. Some may say well then you game was not good to start with than. No what that means is i get to pitch an pitch to try to etch out a lil bit of money so i can make my next project. Its not like some care if i get it made or not.

No i support the game industry because oh my gosh...the games..go figure

[ziggurcat]

more circumstantial nonsense.

there's no proof of any link between the PSN situation and his gmail account being hijacked.

[KillerPwned]

All my passwords our different except ones that don`t matter like a forum. Just keep a watch on your shit its hard to trust any of these stories anymore. It could be real and it could not, this is not the end of the world.

[BeastlyRig]

- http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Don't get lazy with passwords get a book & write them down use #$%^&*(! in your passwords ok?

[NatureOfLogic]

Never, I repeat, Never write down your password. I don't know why people keep saying this.

[BeastlyRig]

so If I have 20 passwords I should memorize them?

Forgive me for being a noob but What do you do?

[NatureOfLogic]

I keep 3-4 passwords in my head, if I feel like I've been using them too much over the years, I change em up a little( word change, letter change, number change, order change........ etc) writing down your password defeats the purpose of even having a password.

[MaverickStar7]

I have various passwords for different levels of things. I probably have 6 or 7 different ones. I use a book to what screenames go to what things. But I don't write the passwords down. I do write down codes to the password that are enough remind me what the password is but there is almost no chance someone is figuring it out from that book.

[jukins]

lol you're gmail didnt get hacked. you're psn possibly but thats what happens when you use the same pass for everything. while i dont believe this for one bit, think this is just an article for hits, its been past the time sony revealed there might be a personal info compromise and you didnt change your password? guess everything from here on out thats bad will be blamed on sony lol.

[Dannycr]

Now, what if, and bear with me on this one, what if... your Gmail got hacked and then they used the same info to log into PSN?

I suppose that is not possible, because the trend is that PSN can get hacked but it's impossible for gmail to be hacked, right?

[BlackTar187]

sony has no security. Well they did bu it was a renewal thing and they couldn't afford it anymore after 5 years.

so the security firm removed all the previous unhacked walls and bam PSN was hacked next day. How these things work in the real world
/s

[Lirky]

I noticed playstation.sony sony uses that to e-mail you on gmail.

And that new TOS that released apr.8th that was used by a playstation-email

I wonder their latest update on qriocity and psn using the playstation-email title again if its an authentic e-mail since the playstation.sony one seems to be more authentic.

So i wonder if opening up playstation-email would maybe be a fake spam email from hackers i dont know i hope not.

[Kran]

Superman is right.

Never use the same password for PSN and it's linked account. Ever.

[il-mouzer]

to this day and age I rely to pen and paper to store all my passwords and also a password generator :D

[ZBlacktt]

Come on now.... Like what would a hacker want in your little gmail account? Really? Really? Like millions and millions of player accounts and they would hack your worthless gmail. People reading this, be smart. Not saying this guy is making a story up to gain attention ( not saying he isn't either ). But lets really think here...

[BlackTar187]

I also LOL at how this bad stuff related to the PSN hack only happens to the normal blog users we see around.

[CamelCarcass]

Jesus Christ the fucking idiots around the internet.
Google do regular verification.
YOUR FUCKING GMAIL WASN'THACKED

N4G, police this shit these articles are irritating as hell, all these twelve year olds that don't understand what the fuck is going on.

NO-ONE HAS BEEN HACKED YET, NO-ONE HAS REPORTED ANYTHING.
There was a possibility that personal information has been exposed which is why PSN is down, it won't be up until they can ensure that no-one can view it.

"low and behold I couldn’t log into it"
You need to type your password again.
Not whine, complain and talk biblical.

Whoever keeps approving this crap, do us all a favour and stop.
It's worse than the damn Geohotz news spam.
So much butthurt here, it's unbelievable.

[MaverickStar7]

If this is true, this guy is dumb for using the same password. You don't use the same password for everything. At the least don't make sensitive things like your email, bank account, or credit cards the same as less important things.

[cheetah]

No way! A gmail account sending spam!

Those bastards Sony

[Klaykid123]

TBH, who cares if this guys GMAIL is hacked.

[AnonUser5555]

because if your email account gets hacked, then you are opening yourself up to all of your bank accounts being accessed.

think about all the "Reset Password Link Will Be Sent to your Email" messages.

How old are you that you don't get why email hacking is detrimental?

[Soldierone]

Your bank has a simple reset button? Most banks have hidden questions, and you have to enter the previous password....If you have your password to your bank account stored in your email, its your own fault.

Even PayPal is secured like this.

[Klaykid123]

I ment that who cares about THIS GUYS' gmail. Sure you can worry about your own, but idc about this guy's prblem.

[AnonUser5555]

For the record, Sony EU admitted in an email that answers to your Sony Security Questions were also possibly compromised here.

So yes, Passwords + Security Answers = MAJOR PROBLEM.

[ReBurn]

What I don't get is why the original password was saved down anyway. That's a rookie mistake by anyone who is implementing security. You always encrypt it before you store it and never save the original in plain text. Unless they did, but used a two-way encryption algorithm. That would have been just as much of an amateur move.

Regardless, using the same user id and password everywhere is a pretty dumb move, too. At least make your email account passwords different from your other passwords. Such a simple thing to do to protect yourself.

[Soldierone]

Their latest blog update stated it was all encrypted. No security codes were taken even if CC info was breached. And account logins were stored in plain text, behind several levels of encrypted security with a admin based key to access each level.

Obviously the hacked consoles allowed them easy access to finding this key and breaching security.

[Double_O_Revan]

recommend everyone to change their sony online passwords asap as well. think that can be done right on sony website since psn is down to do it from there.

[SnipeySnake]

I just hope my credit card info wasn't stolen...

[SnipeySnake]

And thanks sony for forcing me to put a capital and numbers in my password. If you didnt my email would have been hacked lol

[kwyjibo]

If Sony had stored passwords as salted hashes, like any other competent organisation does, then this issue would not have arisen.

In that case, even if hackers do get in, the data is mostly useless - being way to computationally expensive to crack.

Must do better.

[chewmystink]

@FredEffinChopin so what happens when there is a security breach with lastpass, all your passwords are there for the taking. Please what a stupid idea and I can't believe people would use a service like it.

[AnonUser5555]

Not defending Sony for this ridiculous situation, but you shouldn't use the same passwords.

Also, people, use Google's TWO STEP gmail verification. No one can log into your gmail account from a computer that isn't yours unless they have a verification number that is sent to your phone.

[ForROME]

The guy is dumb I agree, however if you know anything about appropriate protocol a company should never put a user in a position to be felt to be an idiot - SONY did not protect, had they done their part, this wouldn't be a conversation now would it

[Soldierone]

Im sure he would come up with something on this level of stupidity one way or another. Sony just let it be easy.

How hard is it to say your email was hacked by sony? Gmail ALWAYS randomly checks to make sure its you accessing your email. Sometimes you can simply login from an unregistered device and it will signal a check.

[Soldierone]

Hey my hot dog got hacked! I blame Sony! ....wow.

[peeps]

gonna be so many of these articles now. People with blogs posting an article about how they got hacked and then posting it on here to get hits.

Always makes me laugh when people post updates 'to the N4G users' like the only way people would visit the blog is if it go hits via N4G by having a controversial title.

End of the day I feel for anyone who genuinely suffers because of this security breach cus who knows I may suffer too, however isn't this jumping to conclusions just a little.

It's the same as all the 'x bricked my console' articles we have around big new games and firmware releases - perhaps your console was going to die anyway?

[AliC]

More likely a coincidence, I see this kind of issue everyday and its "Never" the persons who uses their systems fault.

I'm not doubt that perhaps some data was leaked, but some of these articles seem to be quickly jumping to conclusions with out any real evidence yet to back up claims.

[osvaldo]

well i turned on my playstation and everything is gone privite pic, music, movies ext.. my gmail info is the same even password. how could u remember all ur passwords i meen we put privite info here creditcard accounts and all u think that your safe even this computer crashed i lost all kinds of stuf man thanks God that i get prepaid cards so if those bastards got them it aint much $$$ but all my 3 years of data is gone from my ps3 and vaio im pissed.

[StitchJones]

Change your password to your e-mail accounts.