Sony locks down PSN, SOE accounts after security compromised

In April this year, Sony's PlayStation Network was subject to a widespread security breach, which led to a month-long network outage and the exposure of some 77 million PSN accounts and an additional 24.6 million Sony Online Entertainment accounts.

Although Sony managed to restore all affected PSN services by June, it looks like the publisher may once again be the subject of yet another attack.

In a statement to media today, and as reported byCNET, Sony revealed that it has locked down 93,000 user accounts on its PlayStation Network, Sony Entertainment Network, and Sony Online Entertainment network after detecting a large number of unauthorized attempts to gain access to the accounts.

According to Sony, intruders "using very large sets of sign-in IDs and passwords" had brief access to 60,000 accounts on the PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network and another 33,000 accounts on the Sony Online Entertainment network.

In a post on the official PlayStation blog, Sony chief information security officer Philip Reitinger said that the attacks have affected less than one-tenth of 1 percent of customers.

"As a preventative measure, we are requiring secure password resets for those PSN/SEN accounts that had both a sign-in ID and password match through this attempt," Reitinger said in the post. "If you are in the small group of PSN/SEN users who may have been affected, you will receive an email from us at the address associated with your account that will prompt you to reset your password."

According to Reitinger, hackers succeeded in verifying sign-in IDs and passwords, but credit card information was not breached. Sony locked the accounts after confirming that the attempts were unauthorized and is sending emails to affected consumers who have locked accounts.