Game Informer is reporting that the Sony (this time Sony Online Entertainment) was once again hacked last night, hot on the heels of their last major security breach, just over a week ago.
It seems as though the attack was targeted to credit card numbers and approximately 12,700 were stolen. It is believed that 4,300 of them belonged to Japanese customers.
People are having a field day vilifying Sony for these security breaches, but the real bad guys are the criminals perpetrating the attacks. And if this is some half-assed retaliation for Sony working to protect their intellectual property (appropriately in a court of law) that makes all of these breaches twice as childish. Sure, I think Sony is wrong to try to prevent people from changing the software on machines they own, but they are pursuing what they believe their rights to be in a suitable arena. If the hackers wanted to do some good and benefit everyone, they wouldn’t steal our data (and make no mistake, they’re hurting us, not just Sony) they would step out of the shadows of internet anonymity and file a class action lawsuit to protect the rights of users who wish to modify their systems (if that’s what this is even about.)
It’s important to note that Sony should be doing everything it can to protect the data of its users. Even if that means flushing it all down the toilet and asking its users to start over. Sure, that might be annoying to users, but it’s far less annoying than having some thoughtless hacker steal your data and make himself rich with it.
Sony is responsible for not keeping the data better protected, sure, but ultimately it’s the hackers that are doing the wrong here. It’s important to keep that in mind.
While you’re keeping that in mind, I’d be sure to report your credit card number as stolen if you had it kept in the Playstation Network. It’s a hassle, sure, but it’ll be worth it in the long run, just in case.