The issue of PlayStation account hacking via social engineering continues to worsen, as yet another high-profile member of the community had their account stolen over the weekend. As we’ve previously reported, hackers are using basic public information about their victims to steal their PSN accounts with the help of PS Support agents. Despite hue and cry, Sony hasn’t addressed the problem yet.
PlayStation account hacking via social engineering remains a massive security issue
To recap, no one is immune to these social engineering scams, as all hackers need is information like your PSN ID, email address, and recent transaction.
So, if you talk about buying a new game online and a scammer takes note, they can impersonate you by giving PlayStation support agents information about what you purchased, along with your username or email address, and have them disable two-factor authentication. Hackers then take control of your account and change the email address and password, permanently locking you out with no immediate resolution.
That’s what happened to known PlayStation journalist and podcaster Colin Moriarty, and most recently, popular PlayStation community member Radec. Moriarty was able to use his connections within Sony to wrestle back control of his account. Radec, like many prominent trophy hunters and community members, is still locked out of his account.
Until Sony addresses this issue, here are some simple measures that we advise our readers to take to protect their accounts:
- If your email address must remain public (this is unavoidable in quite a few scenarios and careers), use a different email address for your PSN account — one that is only known to you and/or those you trust.
- If you haven’t already shared your PSN ID on social media, avoid doing that.
- Make your Recently Played games list private or set it to “Friends Only.” If your most recent game also happens to be the one you most recently purchased, hackers can use this information to assume your identity when contacting PS Support.
- Don’t share screenshots that contain information like a transaction number, even if it’s not your most recent PS Store transaction.
- Don’t add people you don’t know or aren’t sure of to your PSN friends list.
We’ll update our readers when/if Sony addresses the matter.
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