By Shane Curtis
Sony became the latest entertainment company to suffer at the fingertips of hackers after their
PlayStation social media channels were temporarily hacked on Sunday evening.
A group called OurMine claimed credit for the
compromise that targeted the company’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Sony quickly regained control of the accounts but
not before the hackers had posted a series of messages on the social media
accounts.
After taking control of the PlayStation Twitter
account, it tweeted to the 14.6 million followers of the account, encouraging
the company to contact them via their website. This followed a tweet from
three minutes earlier clarifying that they were not going to share any
data and emphasizing that they were a security group.
OurMine is a well-known Saudi Arabian security
hacker group that have previously hacked other celebrity accounts. However,
they claim to be an ethical hacking group and are only interested in helping
the groups that they hack with claims that they only want to “show you all
available vulnerabilities, and fix them all!”
The hacking group have labelled themselves as an
“elite hacker group known for many hacks showing vulnerabilities in major
systems,” on their website, along with a list of services/promises that
they promote.
A hack on PlayStation is nothing new having
previously suffered at the hands of hackers in 2011 when the PlayStation
Network was attacked leaving millions of PS3 users unable to access the network
for 23 days.
Xbox, the gaming industry’s other leader, has also
suffered from the unwanted intrusion of hackers back in 2014 when its Xbox
Support account was taken over for 45 minutes by the Syrian Electronic Army.
While the intentions behind the hack seem to
be very much based on the promotion of the hacking group, it must be a major
concern for both Sony and PlayStation alike, that private user information,
including credit card details, may have been compromised.
Sony have yet to make an official statement
regarding the hack but you would imagine it is only a matter of time before
they address the issue.