Were the Sony PlayStation Social Accounts Really Hacked?

A hacking group calling itself as “OurMine” has claimed that it has hacked into Sony PlayStation network and its Facebook and Twitter accounts. It had hacked PlayStation social accounts and posted messages on its social media accounts. The group claims to be a white hat group that exposes vulnerabilities in enterprise network systems.

The group claims to have accessed the Sony PlayStation social accounts database, but it has refused to share details of the accounts or any of the sensitive information to the public. Access to these accounts would mean access to the payment card details.

The first indications of the data breach were noticed when the group posted the message “PlayStation Network Databases leaked #OurMine.” These messages were deleted later by Sony, and the hacked PlayStation social accounts have been restored.

Though the group claims that its intentions were only to expose vulnerabilities to make websites secure, presently it is not known whether it had other malicious intentions and sold the data on the dark web.

Ethical or Not Ethical

Cyber experts argue whether the group’s activities were/are ethical. Or was the attack just to gain attention. On its website – https://www.ourmine.org/ the group advertises – “Secure yourself in the internet (Social Media and Email) with one of the best hacking team.” It posted similar messages on Sony’s official PlayStation-branded Facebook and Twitter accounts calling upon Sony to contact their website for protection.

This attack has ended for the present, but it has revealed that the Sony PlayStation network is still insecure. If you would remember, the Sony network had been hacked earlier in 2011, when the hack compromised around 77 million accounts, and users could not access the service for 23 days. This was a massive data breach, and the OurMine hackers seem to portray that the website is still lacking in security.

Earlier Attacks

This is not the first time that OurMine has hacked and exposed a website – it has hacked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s account, and accounts of other celebrities. The business model of OurMine seems to be to hack service accounts, expose the vulnerabilities, and then offers its security services.

Though this exposure could be termed illegal, vulnerabilities have been exposed. Sony has neither accepted or denied the data breach. But it would be better that it gets its act together to provide more robust security to its user accounts. Breach of trust, as it had happened earlier, can lead to severe loss of business, trust, and reputation.