PlayStation website infiltrated by hackers News • News • Eurogamer.net

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Enter at your own risk, warns IT firm.

IT firm Sophos is claiming hackers have broken into the US PlayStation website, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Apparently miscreants have introduced unauthorised code to the SingStar Pop and God of War pages, causing a pop-up box of evil to appear. The box warns that a virus has been detected so frightened Internet users rush out to buy expensive protective software.

"There are millions of videogame lovers around the world, many of whom will visit Sony's PlayStation website regularly to find out more about the latest console games," said Graham Cluley from Sophos, clearly not about to let anyone get away with this.

Sophos further warned that hackers may not stop here, and may make the pages even more malicious by installing code designed to harvest your secrets.

"Most would never expect that surfing to a website like this could potentially infect them with malware. If users do not have sufficient protection in place then they might find that before they know it they have been scared into handing their credit card details over to a bunch of cyber-criminals," said Curley.

"It is essential that all websites, especially when they are high profile like this or receiving a large level of traffic, have been properly hardened to prevent hackers from injecting malicious code on to what should be legitimate webpages."

GamesIndustry.biz fought the law, and the facts won.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

Comments (17) Latest comment 4 years ago

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gabsta69 #1 4 years ago

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has this ever happened on the 360? or Wii?
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KayJay #2 4 years ago

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You think someone hacked the 2.4 update?*

____
*Conspiracy Theory

Edited by 1 at 03/07/08 @ 09:12
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craigy Verified Senior Developer, Eurogamer Network #3 4 years ago

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Properlyhardenedlol
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bad09 #4 4 years ago

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@ gabsta69

Not on the websites but I have heard claims Live itself got hacked and some were able to "steal" your Live account, don't know how true it is though with the net being what it is.
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spookyzombie #5 4 years ago

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Sony are having a bad day.
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Psiloc #6 4 years ago

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This company is ALWAYS on the BBC website saying "YOU NEED OUR PROTECTION FROM 1337 H4xx0rz!!!1".

Just go away. Your software can't help people who are stupid enough to click on pop-ups.
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Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #7 4 years ago

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I do find it funny that he berates the "cyber-criminals" for scaring the public into buying software before he says:

"If users do not have sufficient protection in place then they might find that before they know it they have been scared into handing their credit card details over to a bunch of cyber-criminals."
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systems #8 4 years ago

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I mentioned this yesterday on the EG forums:
[link url=http://www.eurogamer.net/for um_thread_posts.php?forum_id=1&thread_id=117964&start=30
]http://ww w.eurogamer.net/forum_thread_po...[/link]

You're fine to go there - just make sure you're running Firefox with the "NoScript" extension.
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php_penguin #9 4 years ago

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zomg 360 FTW! loljk

but seriously, how effective are popup ads? I bet not even 1/1000 who recieve the popup will click on it, followed by the usual 5% (average across internet) hit/sale conversion...
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penhalion #10 4 years ago

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@bad09

Not on the websites but I have heard claims Live itself got hacked and some were able to "steal" your Live account, don't know how true it is though with the net being what it is.

It was utter nonsense. People were giving away their live account details to friends or spoofers and being banned when their so called friends or the spoofers used their accounts wiithout their knowledge. Somehow that got converted into a rumour that live had been hacked.
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bad09 #11 4 years ago

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@ penhalion

Yeah I thought it sounded very suss at the time but that's internet whispers for ya!
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DanWhitehead #12 4 years ago

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EUROGAMER: PROPERLY HARDENED.
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makeamazing #13 4 years ago

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The question i would be asking is what is Sony's response to this? All very well some AV company trying to get PR.. but is it true and if so why hasnt sony pulled the offending pages.
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L42yB #14 4 years ago

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@kj66246

I bet it was MS (possibly in conjuction with Ninty) who used their secret 1337 haxxorz to infect Sonys website!

/tin foil hat
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DFawkes #15 4 years ago

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So IT firms Sophos are saying this? I've used Sophos software before, and they have no right being all judgmental when their own programs aren't very good. It's always the developers who make the worst, most scaremongering software (Nortons is the worst - "You clicked a button! This will cause instant death, continue? Are you sure? Really? DEATH TO YOU GUARENTEED!" etc) who report loudest.

It is still annoying that hackers are doing this though, but it's never as bad as these companies make out, usually being more irritating than PC-killing.
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steviepunk #16 4 years ago

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That would be terrible if users were to associate Sony with malware or rootkits...
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RazorObsession #17 4 years ago

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from mmo's, to console online functionality, to webpages. Sony should sort out their online act. or maybe protection from malicious hackers was a last gen feature?
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