• Michael Bay Uses Recycled Action Sequence in Transformers 3 From ‘The Island’

    // Gradly // blog, Movies, News, Rants & Raves, Scandal, Tech., Youtube 2 Responses

    Say what you will about Michael Bay, but he is a filmmaker who knows how to maximize the bang for the buck. He is often criticized for using too much product placement, which gives him millions of dollars more to play with than he would have otherwise had access to. so you can’t really blame the guy for re-using footage from one in another, more particularly the guys has used some footage from 2005 “The Island” and reuse it in Transformers 3 Dark of the moon.

    Filmmakers often use stock footage to save money from traveling to capture an exterior of a city, house or location. Its a very common occurrence which you likely never notice. Bay has used stock footage in most of films, sometimes borrowing shots from his earlier movies . Watch the clip below which shows that Bay recycled shots from an action sequence from The Island in Transformers: Dark of the Moon:

    And by the way, it’s not the first time Bay has done this. In Transformers, a shot of an aircraft carrier that was borrowed from Pearl Harbor.

    [via /Film]

  • Sony Music Japan Hacked Through SQL Injection Flaw

    // Gradly // blog, Featured, News, Rants & Raves, Scandal, Sony No Responses

    Another day, another attack on Sony. Just when you couldn’t imagine it getting any worse for Sony, a new attacks on the Sony Music Japan and Greece websites (SonyMusic.gr, SonyMusic.co.jp), exposing databases using SQL injection techniques. Sony has suffered from two hacks last month lead to compromising over 100 million accounts along with usernames, password, credit cards info.

    The good news? The database information that was published does not contain names, passwords or other personally identifiable information. The attackers noted that there are two other databases on the site that are vulnerable and it remains unclear whether they contain sensitive information.

    It isn’t clear whether the hackers are able to inject data into the database, or simply access the tables and records it contains. If they are able to alter the records, this could be used to insert malicious code that could be used to compromise people browsing the site.

    While there is an enormous target on Sony’s back as a result of these very public attacks it is unclear why this is happening. Is Sony taking security seriously or are there simply so many flaws from the past that exist in their public facing sites that it will take them a long time to patch them all?

    I hope this is the last time to report on a flaw at Sony. Sony has announced they are working with several professional organizations to get their security house in order and for their sake I hope this happens sooner rather than later.

    [via nakedsecurity]

  • Sony Hacked Again New Phishing Sites Identified

    // Gradly // blog, Consoles, Featured, News, PS3, Scandal, Sony 1 Response

    It seems like a nightmare for Sony as Reuters now reports that the Internet service provider unit of Japan’s Sony, alerted customers that an intruder broke into its system and stole virtual points from account holders worth $1,225.

    This latest attacks comes after personal information of some 100 million Sony user accounts was stolen last month when its online gaming systems, the PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment, were hacked.

    “What we’ve done is stopped the So-Net points exchanges and told customers to change their passwords,” So-Net said in a statement to customers on its website in Japanese.

    About 100,000 yen ($1,225) was stolen from accounts that were attacked. The company said there was no evidence that other accounts in the online system had been hacked.

    “At this point in our investigations, we have not confirmed any data leakage. We have not found any sign of a possibility that a third party has obtained members’ names, address, birth dates and phone numbers.”

    Security experts, however said that Sony’s networks around the world remain vulnerable to attack.

    Update:

    There’s signs of a credit card phishing scam apparently running, live, on one of the company’s servers as reported by slashgear where F-Secure discovered the fake site, at hdworld.sony.co.th, inviting people to enter all their details for a card they’ll never get.

    At time of writing the page was still up, though Google’s Chrome browser did warn us that it was a reported phishing site. F-Secure has apparently notified Sony, and we’re expecting the company to move with reasonable speed to make sure this all gets removed.

    Actually figuring out how the pages got onto the servers, however, and what loopholes are being taken advantage of may take longer, and it seems that Sony isn’t out of the woods yet when it comes to addressing its security. There are also unconfirmed reports that phishers are sending out fake PSN password reset emails, so do be careful where you click.

  • PSN Accounts Threatened by New Password Exploit [Updated]

    // Gradly // blog, Consoles, Featured, News, PS3, Scandal, Sony 1 Response

    Sony’s new PlayStation Network security measures have seemingly been compromised just days after the service reboot.

    According to reports from Nyleveia, a new exploit enables attackers to change other users’ passwords via the PSN password reset page members are forced to access when they first reconnect to the online service.

    Attackers can apparently reset the password themselves using just a PSN account email and date of birth, pieces of data that were compromised in the recent PSN hack.

    Despite the methods currently employed to force a password change when you first reconnect to the PlayStation network, your accounts still remain unsafe.
    A new hack is currently doing the rounds in dark corners of the internet that allows the attacker the ability to change your password using only your account’s email and date of birth.

    It has been proven to me through direct demonstration on a test account, so I am without any shadow of a doubt that this is real.

    I would suggest that you secure your accounts now by creating a completely new email that you will not use ANYWHERE ELSE, and switching your PSN account to use this new email. You risk having your account stolen, when this hack becomes more public, if you do not make sure that your PSN account’s email is one that cannot be affiliated with or otherwise traced to you.

    While we originally assumed this was a poor hoax designed only to stir the community into another frenzy, the individual who we are in contact with requested just two pieces of information from us: this being an account email and the date of birth used for that account. We promptly created a new account via us.playstation.com and provided the individual with the email address and date of birth used.

    Roughly a minute later they requested that we try to login with the password we used for the account (which they did not know at any point), and sure enough, we were presented with an invalid username and/or password prompt.

    While we will not reveal specific details regarding how the exploit is performed for obvious reasons, we can say that the exploit involves a vulnerability in the password reset form currently implemented, not properly verifying tokens.

    Updated:

    Sony has fixed the security breach found today. Sony’s Patrick Seybold has issued an update via the PlayStation Blog denying it was a “hack”, and saying Sony has fixed the issue.

    We temporarily took down the PSN and Qriocity password reset page. Contrary to some reports, there was no hack involved. In the process of resetting of passwords there was a URL exploit that we have subsequently fixed.

    Consumers who haven’t reset their passwords for PSN are still encouraged to do so directly on their PS3. Otherwise, they can continue to do so via the website as soon as we bring that site back up.