Kotaku: Security

Anonymous Deletes CBS, Universal Sites; is Xbox Live Next?

Owen Good — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST

Anonymous continues to lash out following the seizure of Megaupload and the jailing of its founder, having momentarily deleted both CBS.com and UniversalMusic.com. Xbox Live has been threatened, but is that credible? More »

Resistance's Official Site is Back Online After Seven-Week Outage

Owen Good — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:51:00 EST

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The official site for the Resistance series of games is back online, ending a seven-week outage and one of the strangest security breaches in a year that has seen quite enough of them. More »

Sony Says No Malware Involved in Attack on Resistance Forums

Owen Good — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:30:00 EST

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A Nov. 11 breach of Resistance's official web site, including its forums, did not serve malware to visitors as some had alleged, Sony told Kotaku on Friday. Sony confirmed that an intrusion did take place, resulting in MyResistance.net's immediate closure. The site remains offline as Sony works to rebuild it and close whatever hole the attackers exploited. More »

What the PSN Outage Tells Us About the Steam Hack

Owen Good — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST

While the scope of the Steam Hack remains to be seen, for millions of gamers its early developments—indeed, even Valve's early statements—match those of this spring's notorious PlayStation Network outage, which may provide a guidepost for what is to come. More »

FIFA-Loving Hackers Strike Xbox Live Accounts

Owen Good — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 11:00:00 EDT

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Xbox Live users should keep an eye on their accounts, and any credit card associated with that account, and especially take notice of any strange activity involving FIFA 11 or 12. Several users have complained, through multiple gaming publications, of hackers recovering their accounts to a different machine and using them for purchases associated with the soccer game. More »

Has Your World of Warcraft Account Been Hacked? Remain Calm and Watch This

Mike Fahey — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:40:00 EDT

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Having your World of Warcraft account compromised is a terrible thing which, upon discovery, might seem like the end of the world. Do not despair. Instead, press play and let the soothing British narrators of Blizzard customer service lull you gently to sleep. More »

Phishing Threat Closes European Club Nintendo

Owen Good — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 13:00:00 EDT

Nintendo today sent a message to members of its European website saying that a potential phishing threat prompted the company to close down portions of the site, including Club Nintendo More »

Hacker Group Says It's Snagged Sony Computer Entertainment's Developer Code

Owen Good — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 11:51:56 EDT

The hacker collective Lulz Security isn't taking a break from its attacks on Sony simply because it's E3. This morning, via Twitter, Lulzsec bragged that it had compiled Sony Computer Entertainment's Developer Network source code. Earlier in the week Lulzsec went after Sony BMG and Sony Pictures, and broke into Nintendo USA's website. More »

Latest Hacker Target: Codemasters

Owen Good — Thu, 26 May 2011 19:30:00 EDT

Four days before the North American street date for DiRT 3, password and login data for Codemasters' website was posted online, the developer said, making it the latest name in games to suffer an online attack. More »

Ubisoft Expects Minimal Impact from PlayStation Network Downtime

Mike Fahey — Thu, 12 May 2011 13:20:00 EDT

While the PlayStation Network security breach and subsequent downtime has had significant impact on many PlayStation 3 publishers, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says he expects his company's cost to be minimal. More »

Report: New York State Subpoenas Sony Over Breach

Brian Crecente — Thu, 05 May 2011 07:30:00 EDT

The New York Attorney General subpoenaed Sony over the data breach of its Playstation and Sony Online Entertainment networks, Bloomberg reports. More »

Don't Blame Sony, You Can't Trust ANY Networks

Brian Crecente — Wed, 04 May 2011 10:30:00 EDT

The hack attack that forced Sony to take the Playstation Network and Sony Online Entertainment offline and resulted in the theft of personal information from tens of millions of people around the world wasn't really Sony's fault, it was an inevitability, a security expert tells Kotaku. More »

More Than 12,700 Credit Cards Stolen from Sony Online Entertainment

Mike Fahey — Mon, 02 May 2011 17:30:00 EDT

Sony's security problems continue to mount, as Sony Online Entertainment reveals that the personal information of 24.6 million SOE accounts and more than 12,700 credit card numbers may have been compromised in the massive attack that brought down the PlayStation Network late last month. More »

Playstation Network Hack Shows That Games And Their Problems Are Mainstream

Steven Davis — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:30:00 EDT

The banner headline this morning for the San Jose Mercury News was: Sony says PlayStation users' personal and credit data may have been stolen. More »

Steam Secures Player Accounts With Random Intel Technology

Mike Fahey — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 12:00:00 EST

Digital delivery service Steam wants to keep its users' accounts secure, but software security is a fragile thing. That's why Valve has teamed with Intel for Steam Guard, hardware-based security that could make account phishing a thing of the past. More »

How Custom Firmware Can Put Your PS3 At Risk

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:30:00 EST

What you're about to read is far from a wide-ranging concern. But it does highlight one legitimate reason Sony has for going after PS3 users installing their own custom firmware on their PlayStation 3 consoles. More »

Does This Mean Sony's Kevin Butler Will Also Be Subpoenaed?

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:30:00 EST

PlayStation executive mascot Kevin Butler unwittingly re-tweets the PlayStation 3's private cryptography key, the key that opens the system up to piracy and homebrew programs, after Twitter user Travis "exiva" La Marr taunts the VP of PlayStation Stuff. More »

Final Fantasy XIV Converts Your Cash To Crysta

Mike Fahey — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 13:20:00 EDT

With Final Fantasy XIV launching tonight for purchasers of the Collector's Edition, Square Enix introduces Crysta, a new payment method for players of the company's online titles. More »

What To Do With 44 Million Stolen Online Game Accounts

Michael McWhertor — Thu, 27 May 2010 18:40:00 EDT

Anti-virus software maker Symantec recently uncovered and analyzed a cache of stolen online accounts—many from games like World of Warcraft and Aion—an impressive collection of 44 million swiped virtual credentials. What does Symantec find so interesting about this? More »

In-Flight Electronics Rules Eased After Two-Day Crackdown

Owen Good — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST

The Associated Press is reporting that increased security measures on international flights inbound to the United States have been eased. The government has not publicly announced any changes, but the AP's report cites unnamed airline officials "familiar with the matter." More »

How Will New Rules Affect In-Flight Gaming?

Owen Good — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST

It's not a petty concern. Since Friday's incident en route to Detroit, airlines are ramping up security procedures at the behest of the government, and "approved portable electronic devices" have long been a whipping boy for this sort of thing. More »

The 360 Gets a $30 Chastity Belt

Owen Good — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:00:00 EDT

If you're in a crap neighborhood where smash-and-grab burglaries are a problem, maybe this thing saves your 360 even if the rest of your stuff's stolen. Chances are, you got ripped off just buying it. More »

Atlus Site Hacked, May Have Infected Users With Virus

Michael McWhertor — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:40:00 EDT

The official Atlus USA web site was reportedly compromised by a "third-party entity" today, inserting malicious software into the company's site. According to Atlus, this may have led to visitors being infected by malware. More »

Protect Your Gil With The Final Fantasy XI Security Token

Mike Fahey — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:20:00 EDT

The newly-announced Square Enix Security Token will keep dirty hacker hands off your hard-earned gil via the magic of the constantly-changing login password. More »

Is This A Stand-up Fight Or A Bug Hunt? Norton AntiVirus For Gaming

Stuart Houghton — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:20:20 EST

PC gamers don't have it easy. Alongside the constant hardware arms race and GPU penis-envy, you have the problem that your platform of choice might not just be used for gaming. Even in a locked room with no interwebs a Windows PC is like a magnet for malware and viruses. What's worse, the remedy for such net.bastards - anti virus software - can slow your PC down and hog precious memory. More »

A Batman MMORPG? Er, No, Actually

Stuart Houghton — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:20:00 EDT

While tooling about the web lately you may have come across an advert for a Free Online Batman Game (pictured). More »

The Science of Defrauding MMOs

Maggie Greene — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:30:00 EDT

I find security issues facing games pretty interesting; PlayNoEvil is one of my favorite spots for discussion about security related issues. Gamasutra sat down with Gene Hoffman, CEO of Vindicia, a billing and fraud management company, about the issues facing MMOs and ways to mitigate those issues. Of particular concern are the RMT resale markets (if it exists), and chargebacks. And what of the mingling of real and virtual economies? Hoffman has this to say: More »

EVE Online Source Code Leaked, No Worries

Mike Fahey — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:40:00 EDT

The source code for CCP's EVE Online has been popping up on torrent trackers all over the place this week, leading to players worrying about the security of their accounts, as well as having the peace, sleep-inducing serenity of their mining efforts disturbed. CCP assures everyone that the leak will have no adverse effects on the EVE community.

"The server-side interface used by the client is carefully protected to ensure that no abusive or unwanted information is transmitted to, or from the internal EVE server systems. Nothing the EVE client can do can affect the game state, no advantage can be gained by manipulating the EVE client, no advantageous or disadvantageous information can be transmitted to other EVE users by altering the EVE client."

CCP is still mum on how the source code was accessed, so feel free to make up your own story. Mine involves romance, intrigue, and the movie guy voice saying, "The only thing hotter than their love...was her betrayal." More »

Second Life's Got Some Vulnerabilities

Maggie Greene — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:00:36 EST

Dean Takahashi of the San Jose Mercury News revealed that people can take advantage of a known QuickTime problem and become virtual pickpockets in Linden Lab's Second Life. Steve over at PlayNoEvil points out that "anything can that actually affect the integrity of the game or business application should be completely independent of these services to ensure that a breach in 'the other guy's stuff' doesn't affect the security of your business - especially casual applications and services that do not see themselves as having security functionality." Linden Lab confirmed the vulnerability, but the researchers who exploited the flaw were quick to note the issue can be resolved with a simple patch. Still - I think Steve's got a point: More »

EVE Online, Breached But Back

Mark Wilson — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:40:04 EDT

EVE Online went down for nearly nine hours last Friday due to a security breach. Here's more from their official statement:

...we discovered an anomaly in the EVE Online Database indicating a potential exploit. Our policy in such cases is to mobilize a taskforce of internal and external experts to evaluate the situation...that group concluded that our best course of action was to go completely dark while an exhaustive scan of our entire infrastructure was executed.

Apparently no accounts were compromised, but hopefully steps are being taken to prevent such a hack in the future. Because no one wants their virtual self or their real self paying for someone else's space ship. More »

PSN Accounts Compromised By SCEA Imposter

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 20:40:18 EDT

Don't panic! Yes, according to a report from GameDaily BIZ, a pair of PlayStation Network accounts were accosted during a minor "breach of security" at Sony Computer Entertainment America. This wasn't the work of a team of nefarious hackers of the Anonymous cyber-terrorist organization, but a simple duping of a customer service employee that resulted in the release of unauthorized information to a single user. More »

Microsoft Acknowledges Phishing on LIVE

Mark Wilson — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:20:40 EDT

Microsoft has gone on the record and admitted that phishing scams are occurring on Xbox LIVE. Well, technically they are admitting that phishers are trying to get LIVE account information while ignoring that there's more on the line, like personal credit card numbers. Offering reimbursement to customers, they also wanted to make clear:

This was not a failure of software technology. We want to reassure our customers that there has been no security breach of the Xbox LIVE network or of Bungie.net.

Isn't a phishing scam occurring on a closed and thereby safe network precisely framed as a failure of their technology? There's only so much any company can do to protect customers who are willing to re-enter personal info at the drop of a hat, but for all the sacrifices we make on the closed LIVE platform, it's supposed to be an experience free from the everyday burdens of a PC. More »

PS3 Home - Security, Age Verification, and Booze

Maggie Greene — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 14:00:41 EDT

PlayNoEvil has an interesting meditation up on some remarks made by Peter Edward, director of the Home platform for PS3, relating to some of their advertisers (Marlboro, Durex, and Bacardi - woo!), and tangentially, some of challenges of age verification and the threat of having to move and buy a new PS3 if your account is banned for not being able to play well with others (are we looking at another minor PR disaster when someone buys a refurbished PS3 that comes pre-banned?). More »

Cursor Hackers Hit WoW

Brian Crecente — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 19:00:30 EDT

BBC is reporting that World of Warcraft gamers are being targeted by a group of hackers using the cursor hack that takes advantage of a flaw in the way Windows handles animated cursors. More »

Xbox Live Accounts Compromised (Really, This Time)

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:40:08 EDT

After some initial confusion involving crazy Bungie.net hacking rumors, Microsoft seems to have determined from where recent Live security issues originated. True, accounts were not "hacked" via Xbox Live or Bungie's web site, but accounts were compromised by old-school, tech-free conning of customer support reps. More »

Microsoft Responds to Live Hack Concerns

Brian Crecente — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:25:53 EDT

It appears that reports of a systemic hack of Bungie.net to obtain a slew of Xbox Live accounts may be blown out of proportion. More »

Xbox Live Hacked, Accounts Stolen

Brian Crecente — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 13:44:04 EDT

I was waiting to hear back from Microsoft on this, but haven't so here's where things stand according to ZDnet. More »

Vista Flawed, Insecure

Brian Crecente — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:30:46 EST

The New York Times is reporting that reports of serious flaws and security holes in Vista are already starting to roll in to Microsoft. More »

Day Old PSP Firmware Gets Fix

Brian Crecente — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:00:00 EST

Security hole ho! More »

Battlefield: 2142 Patch Asks You To Leave System Open To Hackers

kotaku.com — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 10:00:20 EDT

Hey, even more reason to just love Battlefield 2142, EA and DICE. Sure, they are infecting you with spyware... I'm sorry, a piece of software that allows them to more accurately monitor in-game ad usage. Sorry, even worse! But hey, it's just spyware... not exactly like they're leaving the backdoor open to hackers. More »