Playstation network hacked! What do users say?

As you probably know already, Sony suffered a massive breach in its Playstation network (see short news clip) that led to theft of personal information, belonging to 77 million user accounts. It is one of the larges security break ins. This event shows how vulnerable we really are online, because our personal information are being exposed. When we register to different tools and websites online, we often have to provide our personal information and we put them in the hand of website owners. The safety of our personal information depends on some company’s security system. In the case of Playstation network, hackers broke into the system and accessed personal information of the users and maybe even credit card information (see how it happened here) And what happens now? Some lawsuits have already been filed against Sony and the courts will decide whether the company will have to pay the users for the damage, caused by the break in.

I was interested in the users’ response to this event, so I decided to look on Playstation forum. I followed some of the discussions about the event and I found out that people are mostly talking about next few issues:

• When will Playstation network start to work again? Some of the people who took part in the discussion are not worried about the event, they are just unhappy because they are unable to play online.

• Who is to blame for the event – Sony or the hackers? A debate evolved around a question about who should the users be angry at. Some are convinced that it is Sony’s fault; because they didn’t provide sufficient security, but others believe that in these days it is impossible to defend against very capable cyber-criminals and are very sympathetic to the company.

• To panic or not to panic? Some users have warned others that they have already received some suspicious e-mails and are wondering if it is connected to the breach. A few users responded to such posts with mocking and insults. They are convinced that those e-mails are just regularly spam messages and are sure that there is nothing to be afraid of.

• What to do? There are also some posts from people who are looking for advice what to do. Users have shared their experiences and told other what they have done. Some have immediately canceled their credit cards, while others believe that this is not necessary because even if the hackers did stole credit card information, they don’t have all the information needed for abusing them.

If you are interested in the debate, see Playstation forum.