Sony Suspends 93,000 Users After Accounts Are Compromised

Posted 10/12/2011 at 10:14am | by Brad Chacos

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Man, Sony just can’t catch a break. Remember that whole “Hackers shut down the PlayStation Network for an extraordinarily long time” thing from a few months ago? Sure you do. Well, the bad news for PlayStation fans continues. Sony’s temporarily suspended 93,000 Sony Entertainment Network, PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment accounts after hackers managed to gain access to the log in information for the accounts.

Sony CIO Philip Reitinger penned a blog post explaining the move. Hackers working outside the network tested “a massive set of sign-in IDs and passwords against our network database,” he writes. “These attempts appear to include a large amount of data obtained from one or more compromised lists from other companies, sites or other sources.” That resulted in successful log ins for 93,000 Sony accounts, which means the hackers obtained knowledge of the accounts’ passwords.

Sony has deactivated those accounts as a preventative measure, and says it will work with users who may have had unwanted purchases made on their account. Credit card numbers have NOT been compromised, Reitinger promises. “If you are in the small group of PSN/SEN users who may have been affected, you will receive an email from us at the address associated with your account that will prompt you to reset your password,” he writes. Sure, it may only be a minute percentage of the overall PSN population, but calling 93,000 compromised accounts a “small group” kind of doesn’t make sense to us.

Have any of you Maximum PC readers been affected by the mass account suspensions?

Image credit: smosh.com