Gamers face hack-attack

[1]

The hacking of the 7.7 crore Playstations worldwide was a disaster big enough for USA’s Department of Homeland Security to look into and investigate. The extent of the attack compromised security of Playstation Network’s (PSN) names, addresses, e-mails, phone numbers and credit card information that users provide forced Sony to turn off the network and Qriocity streaming music service and shoot a warning mail to all its users. The other gaming biggie, Microsoft, too followed suit by warning the users of its Xbox Live gaming service against any future phishing and hacking attempts.
With an estimated base of around 11 lakh Playstation users in the country experts say the threat is very pertinent to the burgeoning userbase here as well. And as the gaming majors take all steps possible to protect patrons’ data, we checked with avid gamers and experts about the nature of the threat and precautions they suggest gamers should take in the wake of the threats. Harsh Gupta of gaming arcade, FoG, avers, “On Both Xbox Live and PSN, users need to submit personal details to access the online portal and give the details of their credit cards to purchase any content. Hence, Xbox Live users are under the same risk as these 7.7 crore PS Network users worldwide.”
Underplaying the threat with the assurance that the PSN was being centrally administered and updated, Atindriya Bose, Country manager Sony Playstation, says, “The PSN is not accessible on an immediate basis, because we’re fully updating the entire system. The entire process is being centrally co-ordinated by investigation agencies.”
Although Sony claims they haven’t yet received any complaints of identity theft or credit card fraud as reports suggest the customer data with them is encrypted, but experts suggest otherwise. “Those that can hack, can easily un-encrypted encrypted data,” says K Mohan, avid gamer.
Gamers worldwide too have been venting their anger on the Web, as Jeroen de Groot, who has the Twitter handle “dutchleaf”, writes, “Hell yeah!! Not only #playstationnetwork is being hacked and attacked!! But #xboxlive aswell!! Justice!(sic)”
Prevention is the best cure, suggests Harsh and talking about precautions that gamers must take, says, “We advise gamers not to give their credit card details on the the network. In India, it’s better to buy games physically from stores rather than download them, primarily due to slow and frustrating broadband speeds.”