Home servers could be forced offline by hackers?
- Posted December 17th, 2008 at 07:19 EDT by
- 4,336 views
- 33 Comments
British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has added its two cents to the tragic tale of PlayStation Home hacks.
If the paper is to be believed, "developers" have teased out loopholes in the code which allow them to customize their avatars, personal spaces and other paraphernalia beyond the presets. So, for instance, hackers might utilise "a combination of the Apache web server and DNS re-direction" to watch their own movies on display screens within Home, or change bits of text and music around. Another hack allows users to download files from the servers, including other people's avatars.
We reported on much of these more cosmetic exploits yesterday, but the Telegraph claims to have stumbled on something rather more serious: a security breach which lets "tech-savvy" console jockeys delete files from the servers and upload their own. This would allow less scrupulous users to spread malware and viruses, or even launch "sustained attacks on the virtual world's servers to force it offline." Yikes.
The Telegraph doesn't provide a source for any of this, and sounds a wee bit unfamiliar with the terminology (since when have "hackers" been called "developers"?). Still, keep your eyes and ears open for suspicious activities, Home inhabitants.
Comments
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dj_sup3r1or
- 7:43am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 2
@1 should comment something useful!
damn, cant believe it, it was delayed so much and we got a pile of sht.
Home is not even seamless like XBOX avatarts I mean to why would I want to go in home to start to play itself. If Iam not there then nobody can reach me.
In any case! What were sony's devs doing for these 2 years? TAKING A NAP?
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PS3-The Ultimate Machine
- 7:46am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 3
Doubt it,Sony will be patching and updating Home far too often for Hackers to do something serious.
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BayBud
- 8:05am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 4
Is it really that important for people to post the first comment on any given thread?
Why are people so banal?
On topic though, im sure Sony will attempt to fix it promptly.
They need to address something with the servers because i can never get online no matter when i try, i think i lucked out on the first day.
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DangerousMali
- 8:21am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 6
lol @ 5 consipiracy much ?
anyway this seems to be a panic at the dico joke, it'll never happen
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KillerInst2129
- 8:23am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 7
What i wanna know is, if Sony knows the Hackers know how to do these things, have Sony come up with a better security method to allow Legit developers to add their own code without sending their code for Sony to upload, and is there a way a Hacker can buy a dev kit to upload their own virus code into Home if the code can just be uploaded. And no offence but why use apache servers anyway, if anybody can remember the PSN Store used to be run from a website on the PS3, then Sony changed to to be embedded in the Firmware instead, what if Home is already embedded (which i think it is) in the Firmware instead of using Apache would that stop these hacker idiots.
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SamuraiClarke
- 8:40am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 8
Well, once again hackers ruin it for everyone. And @1, grow up.
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IndianaJones1936
- 8:51am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 9
wouldnt it be funny if you went to the watch a trailer or something and instead you got some p0rn :P
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kingbass
- 9:00am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 10
these attacks can be from a rivalry console just my opinion, personally if people want the ps3 to go down in that extend would do anything for that to happen personally sony can handle with this :P
they should get the same technology ff11 uses the Playonline system the antihacking thing which its impossible :P
but i hope sony can succeed vs these idiots who try ruin things.
Psn:kadaj101
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Odium_Generis_Humani
- 9:25am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 12
@6 He may be wrong, but corporate espionage exists, and denying it only shows your age. Power off and read a (recent) history book, kid.
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chilledbreeze7
- 9:52am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 13
Yawnnn!!!!...its all just a lot of stupid scaremongering if you ask me. So what if there are glitches in Home which hackers might be able to take advantage of, they certainly wont be able to for long since Sony will obviously release updates to fix any such problems.
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jigglespsu
- 10:08am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 15
@7 this is a server problem not a Home software problem and apache is not the problem here it is used as a tool to regenerate the content from home, i.e fooling your PS3 into thinking it's getting content from home but actually grabbing it from a server you are running at home.
As for PSNstore it just used the built-in browser to generate the interface. It was always software based but because they used the browser api, it looked suspiciously like a web site.
The big question is why Sony haven't locked down the permissions on their server (and I believe they left them wider than a hookers thighs) so they can only expect to have issues like this.
Again Sony really pulls a blunder here. And not without great timing once again.
From what I've seen there is little you can do using the DNS/Apache hack but if there are security issues then Home will be a very interesting place and I am now considering removing my account on PSN altogether
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Alpha2
- 11:09am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 17
There's no such thing as s fully secure server. Hackers spend their lives trying to break encryptions and the stronger it is the harder they try. This supposed hack isnt really that dangerous but ultimately the question is how quickly does sony fill the hole. We're getting a patch this week if the news is to be believed to fix several issues, so prehaps this may be one of them or if not the issue will be plugged on their end silently without anyone even knowing, especially since it hasnt yeilded a single seriously dire issue yet.
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C0SM0NECR0
- 11:28am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 18
LOL @ 11. Won't affect me. It's not like I'm on home that much anyways. Maybe if we're lucky, they'll hack into the arcade games and replace them with some decent games like Samurai Showdown or something. Lol. Kinda funny actually.
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grimmz357x
- 11:58am GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 19
home is cool i meet alot of ppl thats what its designed for and its the open beta judge it when its full of content and more add ons im not worried about security thats what sony techs get paid for the pentegon and government computers get hacked like 3000 times a day sony knows the problem exists then they will definatly fix it
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xBSGeorge
- 12:17pm GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 20
There has been no evidence of anything actually happening to those in home. The only proof of hacking we have seen is a guy who could see stuff on his screen and only his screen. "Look Mom! I made my HOME look different then anyone elses but only I can appreciate it thus its an epic fail" "good for you sweetie, would you like a hot pocket for lunch?"
Until something shows up out of the ordinary I will just enjoy the great experience I am having in Home.
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minddaze
- 12:29pm GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 21
I love how people are bashing Home and claiming that it's a waste of money. It's not a waste of *your* money. If you hate it so much, then don't use it.
This is just speculation at this point. There's no real proof that Home has been hacked and if that was the case, then Sony would immediately do something about the situation.
I highly doubt the hacking is THAT easy to do.
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InfernoReaper
- 12:59pm GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 22
@ 1: So glad you could grace us with your ever-reaching intelligence...
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Hackers must be bored if they are trying to down Home servers. Maybe people who got rejecting by a girl in Second Life?
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Oatmeal
- 1:04pm GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 23
damn dawg @dj_sup3r1or its messed up you tryed your hardest to down play Sony & Home but you cant write trying. so dawg learn how to and stay in school and stop say the same thing you read online.
@Psrealist & Raven how ignorent can yall be, Sony trying to bring something different to home consoles but yall rather stomp it in the mudd. an how can it be a waste of money when in a weeks time frame its doing what its designed to do. ok yeah its not much to do give it time to bulid up first even "God took seven days to make the world".
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teevanator
- 2:31pm GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 25
wtf are the TORYGRAPH doing talking about gaming, like they dont blame it for every R@pe, Murder and stabbing in london nowdays.
Home rules.
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KillerInst2129
- 5:01pm GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 27
@15, hmm thanks i stand corrected, i wasnt sure about it all, i was just wondering about security and interfaces, maybe i got a little confused.
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BayBud
- 6:12pm GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 30
I seriously doubt Microsoft is behind the server problems lol, having said that i wouldn't rule it out.
I think Microsoft seem to have an almost irrational disdain for Home, which at this point in time is kind of understandable; it is essentially a very limited SecondLife without any of the fun.
But, im sure as it progresses it will start to approach it.
PS> what makes me laugh is how Sony publicly don't seem to see that this IS SecondLife, its Law suit close to SecondLife.
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Rauland
- 8:13pm GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 31
@ 6
but mircosoft is known for dumping load of money into stuff with their deep deep pockets so them paying the hackers or paying out home devs to make exploits in the code for the hackers to exploit them. isnt much of a surprize ALSO M$ pay 2 home 2 have delayed via home devs. so i think sony should check out people who are workinh on home and find the people that caused all this. then file a court case agaisnt m$ for unfair competion. IF this happens again, first sony should fix up the exploits
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Bingepurge_99
- 8:25pm GMT - December 17th, 2008
- 32
everyone knows that software dev's hire hackers to hack their stuff to actually find the loopholes. M$ does it with windows. Apple does it with OSX, pretty sure sony is doing the same thing. its the best and fastest way to find and fix the problems.
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