Hackers Publishes Passwords of Sony’s Consumers

Scam artists who recently (May, 2011) compromised the website of TV network PBS have shifted their focus to Sony's movie division, exposing what seemed to be the e-mail addresses and passwords belonging to around 50,000 people who registered for online advertisements and promotions, as reported by The Register on June 03, 2011.

A group namely LulzSec claimed blame for the attack and stated that, it was gained by utilizing a simple SQL injection malware on the website of Sony Pictures. The group alleged the single attack revealed data for over 1 Million consumers, but that the group was short of required resources to imitate such a huge volume of information.

Hackers stated that, they lately broke into the website of Sony Pictures and hijacked above 1,000,000 consumers' private data, including passwords, e-mail ids, home addresses, dates of birth, and all Sony opt-in information related to their accounts. They further added that, amid other things, they also hijacked complete admin information of Sony Pictures (including passwords) along with 75,000 "music codes" and 3.5 Million "music coupons", as reported by LulzSec on June 02, 2011.

According to a press release by the group, the worst part of the attack was that every bit of data that they took wasn't encrypted. They highlighted that, Sony stored above 1,000,000 passwords of its clients in plaintext, which indicates that it's only a matter of stealing it, as reported by The Register on June 03, 2011.

Besides, the group had compromised the website of Sony's Fox and hijacked several of employee passwords along with names, contact numbers, and e-mail ids of around 73,000 people who asked for audition details regarding the upcoming reality show The X-Factor.

Nonetheless, the hijacking of Sony Pictures is the recent humiliation for Sony, which has suffered a series of distressing compromises since being attacked for its scorched-earth lawful campaign against people jailbreaking the PlayStation 3 game console. The attacks have published individually identifiable data for over 100 Million Sony customers and cost Sony around $171 Million. No one has claimed credit for those huge attacks, but the griefer collective Anonymous had lately announced Sony a target in objection of the firm's lawsuit against PlayStation 3 tinkerer George Hotz.

Related article: Hackers Redirect Windows Live Search to Malicious Sites

» SPAMfighter News - 6/11/2011