Earlier today, it was reported that just two days after initial restoration of the PSN had begun, Sony’s network may have been compromised once again.
Through independent tests, Nyleveia reported that a new breach was allowing hackers the ability to change user passwords simply by using the email associated with the accounts as well as the date of birth of the user. These bits of information were reportedly obtained by the original hackers during the April attack that shut down the PSN for almost a whole month.
The poster on Nyleveia’s assertion was as such:
It has been proven to me through direct demonstration on a test account, so I am without any shadow of a doubt that this is real.
Eurogamer among others confirmed this assertion.
Sony has just now posted a statement on its official blog denying that any new hack has occurred:
We temporarily took down the PSN and Qriocity password reset page. Contrary to some reports, there was no hack involved. In the process of resetting of passwords there was a URL exploit that we have subsequently fixed.
Consumers who haven’t reset their passwords for PSN are still encouraged to do so directly on their PS3. Otherwise, they can continue to do so via the website as soon as we bring that site back up.
This, if true, would be a huge sigh of relief for PS3 owners who have been put through the ringer when it comes to personal security throughout all of this. It doesn’t look like any of this has affected online play, simply the websites that users have been accessing to change their passwords.