Most of you are aware of the recent attack on the PlayStation Network caused by a small group of hackers, however now the hackers have claimed to have accumulated the details of over 2.2 million credit card numbers.
Despite Sony’s huge effort the control the situation, the hackers seem to be avoiding all security systems put in place by Sony, therefore many have had their personal information stolen and bank accounts compromised.
These claims were discovered on underground online forums, however security researchers have stated that it is not possible to verify the frightening claims made by the hackers. Over 77 million PSN users have reported suspicious and unverified being placed on their credit cards, this has put a huge amount of pressure upon Sony to put an end to the security crisis.
All of these claims lead Sony to temporarily shut down the services of the PlayStation Network between the 17th and 19th of April. Some of these fraudulent charges include $1500 being spent in a German grocery store, in addition to dozens of PSN users claiming their card has been used on German airlines and in Japanese stores.
Kevin Stevens, a security analyst with Trend Micro has stated the hackers are selling off the database which all of the card details are stored on, however he also said that the claims made by the hackers may not be true. The names of the hackers in Internet forums suggest that they are European , but no further evidence has been provided to support these speculations. Sony made it very clear in a blog post that all credit card details were encrypted, and it is not possible for the hackers to interpret the credit card information of our users, however the claims made by PSN users go against that statement.
“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.”
