PSN Accounts Suffering New Hack, You Might Be Affected

A new PlayStation hack that’s causing members to lose access to their accounts has become known in the past week, and here’s how you might be affected.

With PlayStation Network (PSN) soon approaching 20 years old, many users have had their entire game libraries built up over a nearly two-decade period.

With some gamers putting thousands of dollars into their accounts, the last thing in the world you’d want is to lose all of it due to a security breach on Sony’s end.

As has been reported throughout the week (via Insider Gaming), a new breach is hitting PSN users that allows hackers to claim your account with only two small pieces of information.

The issue was first reported following ‘The Godfather of PlayStation podcasts’ host Colin Moriarty’s post on X (formerly Twitter) regarding a targeted attack against his PSN account.

“My PSN account was hacked, seemingly as part of an ongoing sophisticated series of moves against both random and "prominent" users,” Moriarty wrote.

“Indeed, I was told by someone a few days ago that I was going to be targeted, and he was right. (He was also hacked.)”

He adds that he “wasn't phished, didn't click on any links, didn't randomly put my password somewhere, etc,” and that at the time it happened, his “email started getting spammed with hundreds of random emails from all sorts of sources.”

Following this, Moriarty got a text message from PlayStation Network saying his email had been changed and that Two-Factor Authentication had been turned off.

PlayStation Network Hackers Only Need Two Pieces Of Information To Gain Access To Your Account

Since then, it’s been confirmed that for hackers to be able to access your account, they need only two small pieces of information:

• Your PlayStation Network ID
• An old piece of transaction data, such as a receipt sent from PlayStation Support

Once they have obtained this, the hacker then contacts Sony support to attempt accessing your account, sending along both pieces of information as “proof of ownership”.

Following this, Sony will grant access to the account, allowing the hacker to change things like the email address and password, as well as disable 2FA.

As Moriarty shares later on, it’s understood that employees have asked to escalate the situation internally, hopefully leading to a resolution for any other members who have been affected by this.

He’s been told to hear back from PlayStation Support within three weeks, a move that he calls “f***ing insane”.

“I'd be more patient if it was my fault, if I was phished or clicked a bad link or otherwise did something. Then I'd be like, okay... I get it. But I did absolutely nothing, and in fact had an account with an alphanumeric password and 2FA. That didn't matter. I'm telling them they have a serious breach, and that seems irrelevant, so I will press.”

So in essence, the best way to protect yourself against this security breach is to avoid sharing your PSN ID publicly and only with trusted parties. And additionally, not sharing any transaction information either.

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