• More Details On PlayStation Network Hack

    // Gradly // blog, Consoles, Games, News, PS3, Rumors, Scandal, Sony 1 Response

    Sony Computer Entertainment has issued an update on last week’s “external intrusion” on its PlayStation Network, an attack that forced the network offline and may have exposed the personal information of millions of members.

    On the company’s PlayStation.blog, senior director of corporate communications Patrick Seybold writes that the PlayStation maker will be “taking steps to make our services safer and more secure than ever before.”

    That includes “a new system software update that will require all users to change their password once PlayStation Network is restored.” Presumably, that software update will come to both the PSP and PlayStation 3 within the week. Currently, PSN accounts are locked out of the system, making a change to personal information and passwords impossible.

    For PSN account holders who may be concerned about the damage already done to their personal information or credit cards, Sony offers the following updates.

    On the safety of your personal and financial information…

    The entire credit card table was encrypted and we have no evidence that credit card data was taken. The personal data table, which is a separate data set, was not encrypted, but was, of course, behind a very sophisticated security system that was breached in a malicious attack.

    On the credit card details that PlayStation Network and Qriocity do and do not store…

    While all credit card information stored in our systems is encrypted and there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained. Keep in mind, however that your credit card security code (sometimes called a CVC or CSC number) has not been obtained because we never requested it from anyone who has joined the PlayStation Network or Qriocity, and is therefore not stored anywhere in our system.

    [via: kotaku]

  • Apple Officially Addresses Location Data Controversy

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Conspiracies, iPhone, News, Rants & Raves, Scandal 1 Response

    Apple officially acknowledged the growing controversy over the logging of location data on the iPhone and iPad. The document comes in a Q&A format. In it, Apple addresses some common concerns and explicitly states that they are not tracking the location of your iPhone/iPad, has never done so, and has no plans to do so.

    Why is my iPhone logging my location?

    The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

    Apple states that all data that is transmitted to Apple is anonymous and encrypted and can not be tied to the identity of the user. They also note that findings that the database continues to grow despite Location services being off as a bug that will soon be addressed.

    Apple is planning on releasing a free iOS update in the next few weeks that performs the following:

    • Reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
    • Ceases backing up this cache, and
    • Deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.

    [via: macrumors]

  • PlayStation Network User Information Compromised

    // Gradly // blog, Consoles, Games, News, PS3, Rants & Raves, Rumors, Scandal, Sony 1 Response

    The ongoing PlayStation Network outage that started last week has gone from bad to worse. Sony has confirmed that confidential user information – such as your name, address, password, and credit card number, were exposed to attackers who gained access to the PlayStation Network.

    Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

    Assuming most of you will be affected by this, you may have already received an email from Sony with more information about what to do next. Otherwise, take a look at Sony’s blog post for more information (they’ve also compiled a list of frequently asked questions) on how to protect yourself.

    Sony is still unable to provide a specific date, they claim PSN operations will resume “within a week”.