Sony hit again with two hacks

Japanese ISP subsidiary is broken into, while phishers use Sony server in Thailand

An intruder has apparently broken into So-net, an internet service provider subsidiary of Sony, and stolen about $1,200 worth of virtual tokens.

So-net disclosed the compromise in an alert (written in Japanese) on its homepage on Thursday.

Meanwhile, security firm F-Secure today disclosed that it has also discovered a phishing site that's hosted on a Sony server in Thailand.

"Basically this means that Sony has been hacked, again," Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's chief research officer, noted in the blog post. "Although in this case the server is probably not very important," he added.

News of the latest breaches come barely a month after Sony disclosed intrusions at its PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Online sites that compromised data on close to 100 million account holders.

A So-net spokesman told the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, that the breach of the ISP is unlikely connected to the previous compromises.

The Sony-owned So-net ISP lets consumers accumulate reward points that can be redeemed for Sony merchandize and services. The intruders illegally redeemed points belonging to about 130 consumers. Another 73 accounts were compromised, but their points were not redeemed, the Journal noted.

In addition, about 90 email accounts are also believed to have been compromised in the breach

According to the Journal, an intruder using one IP address, tried to access So-net's point service close to 10,000 times before finally gaining access. So-net itself appears to believe that the intruder had usernames of account holders and used an automated program to generate possible passwords, the Journal said.

It's not immediately clear why the company apparently doesn't have a mechanism for flagging multiple failed attempts to access its systems.

The intrusions are believed to have taken place on May 16 and May 17. So-net discovered the breach on May 18, after receiving consumer complaints. So-net stopped the point redemption service following the discovery of the breach.

he latest breaches are relatively minor in scale compared to the massive breach at PSN and Sony Entertainment Online. Even so, it only adds to the company's embarrassment.

The earlier intrusions forced Sony to take its PSN service offline for several weeks while it struggled to identify the scope of the problems and how to fix them.

The company started re-launching the service this week but isn struggling to keep it running smoothly.

For instance, earlier this week Sony was forced to once again take a portion of its PlayStation network offline because of a programming error that could provide hackers a way to break into its networks.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan, or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed . His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.

       

'Worm virus' hits 9m computers

A worm that infects computers lacking the latest security patches or updated anti-virus software is spreading rapidly, according to security experts.

The malicious program, variously known as Conficker, Downadup or Kido, was discovered in October 2008.

On its blog pages, online security firm F-Secure estimates the worm has now infected 8.9 million machines globally. However, the Finland-based firm recently suggested that the "worm virus" may be a dud.

The virus does not appearing to be working as intended, according to F-Secure. Chief security adviser Patrik Runald told PA that its coding suggests a type of bug that alerts computer users to bogus infections on their machines and offers to help by selling antivirus software. Instead, the virus is mostly spreading to little effect - though it may still pose a threat to infected computers.

Microsoft released a security patch to deal with the worm on October 23. However, computers that have not had the latest security patches installed – or which lack up-to-date anti-virus software – remain vulnerable.

"Obviously the best thing you can do - as we stressed back in November - is make sure that Microsoft’s patch is in place on every vulnerable computer on your network," wrote Sophos security expert Graham Cluley on his blog.

"In addition, you should ensure that your anti-virus software is up-to-date."

Cliff Evans, head of security and privacy at Microsoft UK, said: "Our advice is for users to ensure their antivirus protection is up to date with latest definitions. One of the ways Conficker spreads is by exploiting a vulnerability which was addressed at the end of October 2008 with Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067 which we further recommend users download.

"Other means of infection include exploitation of weak password policies and unprotected file shares. The easiest way to ensure latest security updates are installed is to enable the Automatic Update feature in Windows. Those that do not use Automatic Updates can go to http://update.microsoft.com.

"We have updated our customers on this threat through the Microsoft Malware Protection Center blog. We’ll continue to provide updates as necessary."

Users can download the security patch for their version of Windows from the following site http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-067.mspx

Further information on the Conficker worm and how to deal with it can be found here;
http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Entry.aspx?Name=Win32/Conficker

Source: msn.com