PlayStation Down Update: Sony Music Websites Hacked

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2011 is really not Sony’s year. The company which was once the most powerful company in consumer electronics has found themselves at the mercy of internet malcontents recently, and as they’ve just gotten PSN back online (or not), the attacks on other Sony online properties continues. Two Sony Music sites, their sites for Greece and Japan, have also been hit with hacker attacks and taken offline.

It started this past weekend, when hackers attacked Sony BMG Greece (located at SonyMusic.gr) penetrated their system using an SQL vulnerability. Like the PSN and SOE hacks, they acquired user information, and passed the cache of user data to website The Hacker News. That outlet then posted that cache of user data to pastebin.com. The hacker in that case went by the handle b4d_vipera.

Next, on Monday, hackers hit Sony Music Japan in a similar case. Also using SQL vulnerabilities, hackers penetrated Sony Music Japan (SonyMusic.co.jp) and left a message on the home page taunting Sony. The hacker group LulzSec is allegedly responsible for this attack. It isn’t clear if they acquired user data in that hack, or if they have released it. Regardless, if you’re a user of either SonyMusic.gr or SonyMusic.co.jp, you should change your password.

According to The Hacker News, these are the 8^th and 9^th attacks on Sony by the hacker community. These attacks are spurred by Sony’s legal action against Geohot and others who did work in “jailbreaking” the PlayStation 3. Those jailbreaking attempts came after Sony removed the OtherOS from the PlayStation 3 for ‘security’ reasons. So, did the Japanese tech giant bring this upon themselves? Or do they have a right to protect their corporate interests? We’ll let you draw the conclusions. But I think the one thing that is clear is that Sony is getting embarrassing and getting their reputation tarnished. Sony reports that the PSN outage along has cost them $171 million. That, along with the Japanese earthquake is expect to cost Sony $3.2 billion this fiscal year. But, how do you measure the loss of customer respect and corporate image?

Check out The Hacker News’ coverage of these hacks by hitting the source link.