Sony: 'No truth' to story of credit card information sale

by JC Fletcher on May 2nd 2011 3:28PM

During the marathon late-night press conference this weekend, Sony cleared up plans for the reactivation of PSN and the nature of the attack that led to its being taken down. What it didn't clear up was the status of users' credit cards.

Responding to rumors that credit card numbers were offered for sale on forums -- and even presented to Sony in an attempt to get the company to buy it back -- SCEA PR director Patrick Seybold said that "to my knowledge there is no truth to this report of a list, or that Sony was offered an opportunity to purchase the list." It's not quite a categorical denial of credit card information being leaked -- but at least it's confirmation that nobody's trying to extort Sony with it.

Seybold reiterated what Kaz Hirai said Sunday morning: that nobody from Sony will contact you seeking any ID. Should someone do so, they are up to something nefarious.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Tags: credit-card, outage, playstation, ps3, psn, psn-outage-2011, psp, sony

Reader Comments (66)

But.. some guy on a message board told me it was true.

Who to believe...

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze
Yeah I heard it straight from Sonymustdie4523 on xbox live

@Victoryismine52

You too?!

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze but but but but geohotzzz1!111sh1ft!1!!1

@(Unverified)

Well, if a comment on a blog post says it, it must be true.

Sony is doomed!

@Victoryismine52

He asked me to join his money laundering scheme, but I don't have enough quarters to do my own laundry nevermind his extra stuff

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze
Nothing on the internet is true
Everything is permitted

@(Unverified)

You help your case so much by bashing people who like Sony and getting pissed off a joke.

You're probably just butthurt at the idea that, maybe, the thing you used to justify bad mouthing Sony and a bunch of Sony fans might not be true, thus invalidating all of your already blatantly ignorant blind rage.

That's some Bro level class man.

@oJMan240o
Now granted, this changes nothing and answers no questions.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze The irony is, that Kotku posted an article now that 12k cards have been stolen.

@Victoryismine52

you think it's any better hearing this shit from a PR director employed by sony who, by the way, got slammed in the ass by a bunch of hackers recently? yeah, i think they'll say just about anything right now just to chill people out and reassure the little drooling babies (that's you) checking every five minutes to see if they can log into their psn accounts.

"to my knowledge"... ugh

@Raiderfan

Precisely...it doesn't mean that its not true, just that this Seybold doesn't know about it.

@Raiderfan: I really hate when companies pull that plausible deniability stuff.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_bvp9G59VEQw/Tb4myU9QFbI/AAAAAAAAAXQ/WeJfGAGQVcE/s800/memes-untitled10.jpg

yeah like thats gonna stop them from making sh!t up

Next they are going to say the outage really didn't happen. Nice try Sony but not good enough.

@Insane Koala

lol. Yeah Sony nice try. What did they try to do again?

You heard it from him everyone knows if you want the true info than you gotta hear it from Sonysuuuucksb@lls5839 on gears of war 2 on live.

@Special Agent Bob
People are still playing Gears of War 2?

Love that word 'Nefarious'. Someone should make a villain using that word. ;P

@WoodenAtari2600

they did, Rachet and Clank

@(Unverified)

Umm yeah, Dr. Nefarious from Ratchet and Clank

"To my knowledge, a PR guy (let alone a PR director) is never going to say anything bad about the company he works for, unless he's trying to get fired."

-zero2dash, Joystiq commenter

..Its still alil hard for me to understand how Sony "Doesn't know for sure" if are credit is out there or not...I mean from what I can tell my credit is just fine...but still..they keep using the "We don't know for sure" Line.. and that makes me feel unsure as well :/ on a side note does Sony still not know what day there gonna bring psn back up as well too? I love ya Sony but all this Not knowing is making me alil mad/sick :/

@nuragna well it's important from a PR standpoint to not say "NO" if they don't know, and to not say "YES" in case the answer turns out to be "NO." They have to play this thing pretty close until they've got it figured out.

@nuragna
They know that the hackers had access to the encrypted credit card info, however they don't know if the hackers were able to decrypt it.

Just on a similar note from that same blog post. According to Sony, user passwords were actaully hashed and not stored as plaintext as game sites have been reporting.

Weird how they didn't just say that from the beginning instead of saying everything bu CC info was encrypted.

@libregkd
*was not

@libregkd
I was thinking that myself. It seems like a pretty significant thing to have neglected to mention.

@libregkd
I guess they assumed they assumed it was common sense, which most journalist nowadays seem to lack in an effort to be the first to speculate.

Another point that I thought was interesting on the article from the PS Blog was this:
"While the passwords that were stored were not “encrypted,” they were transformed using a cryptographic hash function. There is a difference between these two types of security measures which is why we said the passwords had not been encrypted. But I want to be very clear that the passwords were not stored in our database in cleartext form."
Maybe I was getting the wrong idea but I felt like a lot of people were yelling and being angry at Sony about the passwords supposedly being held in cleartext which if this is true was actually a false rumor (undoubtedly aided by Sony's vague communication at the beginning of this).

@bloopface
woops libregkd beat me to it. Now I look dumb. :(

this is weird. If I were to say that I hacked google and stole cc info would people have to contact google to make sure that it didn't happen?

I canceled my credit card... better to be safe than sorry.

Well, I hated the fact that the credit card data could have been stolen, but the people that are actually worried about this should have asked the bank for a new card already... This is a horrible situation and it´s Sony´s fauIt but it´s not like they have access to your money for the rest of your life.

@R2D2586 - How is this Sony's fault? Anyone can be hacked .. Let's see you try and protect yourself from being hacked .. Go on bro .. Come on .. DO IT UP MANGGGGGG..

Seriously kids.. You all need to stop being ignorant - You can't put the blame on Sony .. Even the FBI has problems with hackers I'm sure .. -_- Get over yourselves .. There's not even a need for compensation so just quit while your ahead.

@ChainSmoker

You're making the assumption Sony had reasonable security implemented. Nothing is impervious, but when storing that much data there should be a certain minimum level of security. We already know that the software onSony's servers was out of date. Plus we already saw how they completely botched the security of their private signing keys.

@ChainSmoker
How is this Sony's fault?
Well, when you trust your personal information, with your CC number to a company, you expect it to keep it safe.
The hackers are the villains, but something this huge should never have happened.
They had to be better prepared for a situation like this.

sony won't rule out the possibility CC info was stolen but will rule out someone else having it?

it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out something doesn't jive here, other than sony is easy to offend.

Was kidding guys! Hence the winking tongue out character on my post - ;P.

I need to see proof of this. It needs to be the long-form server logs.

@FriedConsole
Yes, the PSTea Party and their cadre of Hackthers rears their ugly head

XD

So .... When EXACTLY is PSN going to be up? That's all I care about right now. Already cancelled my cc and have enrolled in credit monitoring (something Sony should offer complimentary). They said within a week on last Tuesday. That means it should be on today or tomorrow at the latest. How about an exact day & time??!!?!!?

@Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell

Nevermind. It's up in Japan and will be up tomorrow in US & Europe. Yay!

@Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell

Source Please? :0 would love to know if this info is true because that would be at least some light at the end of the tunnel..

@Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell Just tried my Japan account and no, it's not up. No update no nothing. Same message about the PSN undergoing maintenance.

Personally I don't have a PS3 or any Sony product, but let's be real here: every major corporation has issues with hackers. The difference is whether the hackers succeed or not. There are far more people that are willing to hack someone, than there are people who try to keep the hackers out. Every company is at a deficit ALL THE TIME!

Stop with the fanboy-ism here. Just look at the facts and yeah, Sony never gave any form of an absolute answer.

The matter is that they still don't know.

Why are Sony even responding to such worthless rumours?

@(Unverified)

Their backs are against the wall.

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Sony: 'No truth' to story of credit card information sale

Reader Comments (66)

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:31PM Ezio Auditore da Firenze said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:37PM Victoryismine52 said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:39PM Ezio Auditore da Firenze said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:41PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:13PM Ezio Auditore da Firenze said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:13PM oOWallaceOo said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:29PM The Cole Train said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:30PM oJMan240o said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:36PM oJMan240o said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 5:51PM Robborboy said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 6:26PM Liquidfingers said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:33PM Raiderfan said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:38PM RagingStormX said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:56PM MGTrey said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:34PM Mr Hett said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:34PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:35PM Insane Koala said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:57PM BigEgo007 said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:54PM Special Agent Bob said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 6:04PM DreadArrow said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:39PM WoodenAtari2600 said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:42PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:04PM The Scout said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:47PM zero2dash said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:52PM nuragna said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:10PM gordeaux said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 6:06PM DreadArrow said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:54PM libregkd said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:59PM libregkd said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 6:10PM DreadArrow said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 7:20PM ruibing said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:55PM bloopface said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:56PM bloopface said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:56PM eat it said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:56PM erh said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 3:56PM R2D2586 said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:02PM ChainSmoker said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:25PM Vidikron said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 5:30PM R2D2586 said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:00PM fid said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:16PM WoodenAtari2600 said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:14PM FriedConsole said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:30PM Syesta said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:23PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:32PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 5:05PM nuragna said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 11:43PM DrunkRaba said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:33PM Aesir Renegade said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:35PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 2nd 2011 4:45PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

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