Asher Moses, April 29, 2011:
Personal information and credit card numbers stolen from Sony's PlayStation Network in one of the world's largest privacy breaches are reportedly being offered for sale on underground internet forums.
Police and banks have said they have yet to discover a case of an Australian being defrauded as a result of the Sony breach, however, it has been less than two weeks since the attack and potential victims are being warned that they will have to be on their toes for some time to come.
Kevin Stevens, senior threat researcher at the security firm Trend Micro, was one of several experts who told The New York Times that he had seen talk of the hacked database on several hacker forums.
The researchers said the attackers were hoping to sell a database that included Sony customer names, addresses, usernames, passwords and millions of credit card numbers.
The credit card list alone was listed for upwards of $100,000 and the hacker had allegedly offered to sell the database to Sony, however, did not receive a response.
"It's hard to verify at this stage. The theft of credit cards is certainly the worst case scenario, any users potentially affected should be on the look out," said Colin Jacobs, chair of the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia.
"Luckily, it's relatively easy to get a new credit card number. The same isn't true about your name, address and date of birth, so PSN customers are going to have to be on the lookout for a long time to come. Read more>>
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