PlayStation account hacks targeting media personalities shine light on major security vulnerability

It looks like PlayStation accounts are quite easy to hack, and a string of incidents is bringing the vulnerability into the spotlight. While Sony is yet to respond, several users, including a media personality, have had their accounts hijacked in the past few days. This comes at a time when PlayStation Plus membership prices are going up, and single-player games are skipping PC releases.

Colin Moriarty, the owner of Last Stand Media and host of a PlayStation podcast, recently had his account hacked, which is said to be a series of “moves against both random and ‘prominent’ users.” Through a series of posts on X, Moriarty shared that he was warned by another victim two days ago that “they” had his information and that “they” were going to take his account soon. Sure enough, he was hacked even after being careful about not clicking on any fishy links or entering his password somewhere.

Moreover, his co-podcaster, Dustin Furman, was sent a message from Moriarty’s hacked account saying, “you’re next.” Moriarty reached out to PlayStation support, informing them of the possibility of prominent media persons being targeted, along with random players, but the support seemed unaware of any of it. They then informed him that it would take three weeks for any resolution, and in the meantime, they removed his credit card info from the account.

Thanks to his industry contacts, Moriarty was able to retrieve his PlayStation account, but that won’t be true for many other users who have been reporting such incidents for months. According to Pyo on X, it is very easy for hackers to gain access to someone’s PSN account. All they need is the PSN ID and some old transaction data, like an order number or the last four digits of a credit card. Using this information, they use Sony’s internal support system to change the linked email and disable 2FA.

This points to a greater vulnerability that Sony needs to address immediately. Till now, there has been no word from the company.