Online gaming and services have really came a long way. They made life and such more convenient for many of us. Want to rent a movie? Click. Want to buy a game? Click. Want to buy some other type of goods/service? Click, click, click. Things are just a click away for us for goods, for businesses to sell their goods and products, and for thieves.
PSN (Sony's Playstation Network) which is utilized to play multiplayer games online, view content, purchase goods/service has well knowingly been hacked. Be it an inside job, or something more along the traditional lines, who knows. But this is causing some major pains for many people. You see, in order to utilize the PSN you're required to enter a wealth of your personal information. Address, full name, and most shockingly, if you want the ease of use, your credit card information for purchases. So when security is breeched, there's cause for alarm amongst companies, governments that take part in lawing said grounds, and most importantly, Joe Normal who has his information downloaded and filed. While in this case they have not supposedly gotten the "security code" on the cards, it's still very nerving. Worst case scenario is you're potentially in danger of Identity Theft, and loss of your hard-earned cash.
Sony is taking a beating over this. They didn't communicate the severity of this ASAP which is a major screw up on their part, but they did take appropriate action in taking everyone offline to restore security. Many people claim they won't trust Sony ever again over this debacle, and it has already cost them a fortune in remedies to the situation, as well as loss of sales. But people, we need to look at the bigger picture. This isn't the first time a compromise has happened like this, and it most certainly will not be the last. In fact, how these things are escalating, it's only a matter of time before Microsoft, Amazon, and even your banks are targeted knowing they can get into there. This is of major alarm for not just gamers here people, this is of alarm to anyone who uses the luxuries of ease of use that online services offer us.
This brings up something that has to change here...
Bottom Line: People will be more leery than ever to use these services. It's not bound to a simple "gamer" problem, it can happen to any service. While it's easy to say "things should have been locked down better", the truth of this is that things were most likely incredibly secure, but one needs to remember there will always be someone smarter than the last person to touch something. Meaning there's potential for nearly everything we know to compromised if targeted. While some hackers are out there to get a thrill out of it as a hobby, just to SEE if they can get in there, there are many people out there with malicious intent to do things to cripple a company, or hurt people they never met.
The problem here is that companies want to know too much of our information. You'll be asked for all this information just to activate a warranty, or even just to view media content online, no option to even purchase any goods/services. This has to stop, these companies have bitten far more off than they can chew in that each time they think they're protecting you and especially themselves, they're actually raising your own risk to have your personal life compromised. It's a shame that with all this new technology and services to make our lives easier, it also creates a higher potential to hurt us far worse. Things need to change, and now.
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