Scareware runs amok on PlayStation site

Gamers visiting the US Sony PlayStation website risk malware infection after the site was hit by hackers. SQL injection vulnerabilities on the site were used by miscreants to load malicious code on pages showcasing the PlayStation games SingStar Pop and God of War, net security firm Sophos reports. The code promotes scareware …

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony fails again

Lucky us XBox users have a massive library of games compared to the very few on the PS3, now have stable systems since the RROD problem went away years ago unlike the PS3 with it's bricking update. Have HD movies available on demand without having to pay for massively expensive Bluray discs. Oh, and, well, don't get infected by Malware when we visit our console's site.

[Mark]

Hirarrriouuuuus!

IT WAS ME!

[Chris Richards]

@Sony fails again

yeah, but you're made my m$!

reason enough for me to steer clear (plus the xbox is so noisy! and the green on dirty white looks terrible, not matrixesque nor futuristic).

[Chris Richards]

@myself

by, even.

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC, lol @ bricking

Um numbnuts, bricking is where the console is fscked. Like when a RRoD totaly warps a motherboard!

[Chizo Ejindu]

Re: Sony Fails Again

I'm interested AC, you must have a huge library of exclusive AAA games for your 360 and i'm sure you'd love to share that list with us... And while you're at it i'd be interested to hear about all the HD films you're streaming off the net, or are you downloading them then watching?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Chris

Yeah, your quite right, the 360 is inferior to the PS3 because of the colour scheme on the plastic box because the looks of the outside of the plastic box is the most important part of a games console.

Then again, personally I spend most of the time playing great games on my 360 rather than looking at it, then again guess maybe you sit staring at your PS3 wishing you had any games worth playing on it?

[Anonymous Coward]

what was that the 3shitty ?

Blu ray nope nope dont support it..

MGS4 in 1080p.. nope nope dont have it..

I have so many games queued up to play, I havent gotten round to it yet..

x360 looks like shit, is inferior cell processor ?? blu ray etc etc..

You even seen drakes fortune ? mgs4 ? motostorm ? gran tourismo 5 prologue ?

the list goes on I cant be bothered to continue,

you seen what the 2.4 firmware update will provide to the ps3 ?

bricking update ? the shop didnt work, backup the drive and format and it starts working again (some conflict probably to do with cod4)

massively expensive blu ray ? urmm... thats why the games are the same price near enough and it holds how much more data per disk ?

why bother trying to explain to an idiot why they are an idiot.. they are just an idiot..

If you happen to be a microsoft fan boy and your running the latest and greatest windows os, you could have gotten infected, except us users running Linux and on the ps3 wouldnt have gotten anything happen to us ...

[Iain]

@Chizo

Yes, the AC is (partly) downloading the HD movies, because the bandwidth needed to watch them is rather greater than what most people have at home. So it does the old "buffering..." trick in the background until it's nearly done. You can get a list from here:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/marketplace/moviestv/

Re: games, do you really need to see the Halo 3, Crackdown, Forza 2, PGR 4, Gears of War, Dead Rising, Ninja Gaiden II, etc, etc list again? There are several valid complaints about the machine, but you're the first person I've seen claim that its lacking in software.

[JP Sistenich]

@AC & Chizo

I, personally, am quite happy with my Wii.

[Chizo Ejindu]

@ Iain

I never said anything of the sort. What i asked was for the games AC had that we're exclusive to the Xbox, not the full list as i'm well aware of the 360's back catalogue. My point being, half the "exclusives" on the 360 will end up on another platform sooner or later, whereas that's rarely the case with PS3 or PC exclusives.

And WRT downloads vs bluray, you don't need to buffer bluray, if your HDD dies you don't lose anything and you actually own the media rather than renting from the download service :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I own both...

..so I will incur the wrath of 2 camps or be able to provide a subjective comparison without fanboyism!

Let's be honest now. The 360 has been out a while and so it's bound to look dated compared to the PS3. However despite the PS3's 'superior' CPU it has yet to actually be used to any potential that I can recognise as it being better than the 360. The PS3 has games that look great on my 42" 1080p screen, likewise for the 360 and I can honestly say that there is no significant difference in the quality (especially as a lot of titles are acutally upscaled from 720). GTA IV runs better on the Xbox than the PS3, the xbox has achievements and live which are two reasons I rarely buy a game release on both platforms for the PS3. GTA IV i couldnt resist stealing a mates PS3 copy and trying out to see 'the amazing' PS3 in action. I was disappointed.

Now people will blame the fact it was limited by coding for the 360, that's a pretty lame excuse tbh, rockstar knew how big of a deal GTAIV would be, I'd bet they just couldnt get the grips with the PS3's complex code or streamline the code to a way that stopped the juddering the drop in framerates etc.

That said, the 360 has it's annoyances, random freezings is one main bugbear, that live is a subscription service is another. If the 2.4 patch (which they revoked last night after i'd got it installed :( ) makes trophies as good as achievements and if the PSnetwork upgrade whenever that comes can rival live for stability, performance and features then I'll certainly sit up and take more interest in online gaming on the PS3.

Both consoles are pretty evenly matched, currently the xbox wins purely for it's all-round ability. If people crack the cell processor programming and unleash the supposed beast then the PS3 may start to lead the pack. I don;t see it happening for a while yet though and I will continue to buy multi-format games on the 360 until something big happens.

So even though you will probably continue screaming tech-specs at each other, dredging old news and failures about each others consoles, anyone sane and not somehow braindead enough to blindly believe one console rules all then please take note this is one very happy owner of both. The only real loser here is my poor PC that sees less and less of me with each week that goes by.

Quit your pointless bickering about consoles, load up some anti-spyware software and prey other companies notice this unforunate attack on the Sony site and fix their sites from SQL injection attacks.

[Marco Alfarrobinha]

@AC (14:48 GMT)

Format the HDD??? Lose all your save games? You have to be joking, otherwise you just gave the best ever reason NOT to own a PS3. Just imagine, all those hours on Forza2 and GTA IV down the drain. I'd rather have a RRoD every couple of months (more time with the missus, hehe).

Mine's the one with the proprietary, expensive, easily deatachable hard drive.

[Fluffykins]

So, Sony.

Foist rootkits on us would you?

Well that's what it feels like.

Hope you enjoyed the experience.

[Anonymous Coward]

come come

Oh yes lets not forget sony owns sony pictures..

and sony is releasing same said video "rental" service on the ps3 oh yes and there is play coming on..

Halo3 lets face it same shit as haze..

forza 2 trying to imitate the best Gran Tourismo, Gran Tourismo wins hands down..

Gears of war soon available on the pc if not already was a cool game..

ninja gaiden sigma was on ps3 2 on xbox360, and sigma 2 will probably hit ps3 soon enough.. I wasnt a massive big fan.. I didnt buy the sigma.. I thought Heavenly Sword was better (didnt get that on x360 right ?)

The Dead rising I havent seen only looked it up now.. Looks interesting.. Wouldnt buy a console for it..

WarHawk ? good game..

Unreal Tourney 3 x360 will get in a few months, its ok..

Ratchet & clank --> Absolutely Awesome game

Resistance 1 --> Awesome game, 2 should be amazing.

Time Crisis 4 --> nope nope dont think you got that..

Basically as it goes ps3 kicks x360s ass, in terms of raw power it has more (as proven by mgs4, I repeat again a game that heavy graphically that smooth an engine in true 1080p.. You have still have not gotten anything near that on the x360 the cell processor will show its worth.. It already is)

Other than that None of the games on the shitox360 stand out that much compared what is the killer games you guys have gotten this year ? nothing... pretty much..

Give it till the end of this year and x360 will be relegated to 3rd place with Nintendo wii top and ps3 second..

[Anonymous Coward]

@Marco Alfarrobinha

rrod every couple of months ?? and give box back and lose everything ?

you can backup the entire ps3 contents onto a usb disk you plug in format, hell shit stick on linux as other os, then reinstall and the restore all the data..

read again

[vahid]

Format the HDD?

Yep if you backup your game data to a usb stick you can safely format ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

@Marco Alfarrobinha

Let me re-iterate the point made earlier:

why bother trying to explain to an idiot why they are an idiot.. they are just an idiot..

restore !! doh, and it affected how many ps3's exactly ?? not a whole lot..

I was one of the people to get affected by the glitch.. Hence why I wrote about it..

So you would rather have your xbox360 blow up on you every other month, for you to have to send it in for repair or take it back to the shop and get a new one than to have to backup your data on a usb disk and then restore back ? and this glitch affected very few people..

Oh oh while we are it at, how easy is it to change your x360 drive ?? do you void your massively long eula by changing it or can you simply pull it out and stick in another disk ? any chance of running a proper os like Linux on it as well ?

No ? Thought not..

You tried mgs4 yet if you do own the ps3 try it play it and then come back.. not forgetting the res is at real 1920x1080..

They have cracked the programming well kojima pretty much did,

[Monkey]

Hang on...

The article was about vulnerabilities in SQL structure leaving an open door to the base database which enabled hackers to invade a website. It just so happens the latest in a long line of large corporate victims was Sony US. The hacking of NASA's latest Mars lander website wasn't reported, neither was the hacking of Russia's national nuclear industry website and various databases. I'd argue the last example is possibly more worrying that the US Sony site or games console.

The article wasn't about console cock waving you bloody idiots. All of you!

Oh and the AC moron who posted first.... which company is it that wrote SQL? Anyone?.......

[Iamfanboy]

@Monkey

Exactly what I was gonna say!

Sheesh, give these geeks a chance to waggle their epenis in each other's faces and they never fail to take it!

And the thing that makes me laugh the hardest is that you only get hit by these 'attacks' on Sony's website if you're USING MICROSOFT WINDOWS?

Should supporters of either system really be talking right now? This is a case of double-pwnage of both Sony and Microsoft.

For the record, though, if it came down to owning either system, I'd ruther get a 360. Bloodbowl won't be on the PS3 after all...

*goes back to playing Advance Wars on his Nintendo DS*

[Geoff Mackenzie]

Re: all those hours on Forza2 and GTA IV down the drain

Lol, yup, because right up to the hard drive format that was time well spent.

[zook]

exactamondo

Karma Fluffykins

[Alex Rose]

@Monkey

IBM "wrote" SQL - what is your point?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know...

...how many times I've said this in the last few months, but what's another time?

Come on, web developers! SQL Injection isn't at all hard to protect against! Escape your input strings or use prepared statements for god sakes.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Stu

You won't currently see the PS3 excel on Multi-platform titles like GTA-IV because the consoles are so different, multi-platform development is all about compromises for both systems.

Look at the exclusives, and it's a different story, PS3 exclusives blow the 360 ones out of the water. You won't ever see a game on 360 that looks as good as Uncharted Drakes Fortune, it's simply not possible to stream those textures in real time. The PS3 will continue to get better for the next 4-5 years, the 360 has already peaked (seen the Gears2 footage? Marginally better than Gears1).

[Monkey]

Alex

True yes they did. Modern SQL is Microsoft and the culprit of the lazy coding that keeps getting exploited that caused this.

That was my point but not well made, I hold my hands up to that, if we're going back that far and not just to current day SQL that is the root cause of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have a 360 or a PS£

But I bet i've got a bigger cock.

There. Arguement over - can we all go back to discussing worthwhile tech issues now please?

[Iain]

In reply to various points...

Chizo - that's fair enough about the games that AC actually owns, I suppose. I don't have a few of the ones I listed myself; there are only so many hours videogaming I can do in a week. And personally, I found Gears of War to be a tedious, repetitive load of rubbish. Most people seem to like it though, just as they like the MGS series (which I just don't get along with at all).

I'd also rather own my HD movies on disc than use an online rental servies, which is why I have a super-cheap HD-DVD player at home, and will eventually pick up a Blu-ray player (probably PS3) in a year or so. Not because I'm some rabid fanboy upset that 'my' format lost, just because it's expensive and the firesales mean I've got the best part of a year's worth of unwatched films to catch up on as it is. My point was merely that, as online rental goes, the 360's is pretty good; the only ways you could really improve it would be by making the big drive cheaper (Sony got it right by letting you replace the drive with a standard one) and somehow persuade Sony Pictures to join the system, but that is hardly likely to happen.

"come come" AC - have you actually played Halo 3 and Haze? The former is far, far better, more's the pity; Free Radical's Timesplitters series was just fine, and I'm sure we can all agree on the excellence of GoldenEye. But Haze was a disaster. Elsewhere, as someone who has put a fair amount of time into both the Forza and GT series, I'd say that Forza 2 was comfortably the best game across both of them. Given that GT4 was better than Forza I don't doubt that the full GT5 will give it a good run if it fulfills expectations, but Prologue was just missing too much.

Time Crisis 4 is excellent. For a good hour or so, then you realise how little game you got for your £60.

UT3 comes out today, not in a few months.

Replacing part of the name of a product with a swearword is the lowest form if wit.

[Yorkshirepudding]

commeth the 360 fanboy

like the 360 has never had problems, i demand this faggotry cease!

[Ian]

Bless you, console kids

I love seeing console fanboi's fight :D It's like "who's got the least-shit crippled games machine". One day you'll grow up and play games that aren't built for the lowest common denominator with ADD ;) Until then, fight amongst yourselves (online only, using autoaim of course, and your "maximum 14 buttons" user interfaces ho ho ho bless) over which toy shows the prettiest pictures.

I mean you must know they are preeeetty limited or you wouldn't jump up and be in the face of people as soon as some imaginary slight is percieved. You know, like the short bloke down the pub who's got a problem with everyone because he's short. And thick.

[Iain]

@Monkey

The original SQL syntax was pre-Microsoft. In any case, SQL injection exploits are webserver issues, not the fault of the database server that receives the query. More precisely, it's probably a fault by the author of the site, not the server they are using. You might as well blame Apple when a 360 game has a bug, because they built the devkits.

[Monkey]

@Iain

Yep I know that and did say above, but in the grand scheme of things it was less bollocks than the console bashing that started right away on both sides of the political divide! You gotta at least give me that one!

Yes sure the webserver was likely the issue but it can be very, very difficult writing for and managing the web server when you continually have to fight a rear guard action with the code and management to take into account the fact that the underlying SQL is so prone to injection exploits.

My point wasn't a SQL bash, in the context of modern day Microsoft product, or indeed a MS bash. It was that people were throwing rocks in wrong direction for the wrong reasons. Plus typing whilst on a train on a touch screen at the time wasn't encouraging me to necessarily go into depth!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame

Couldn't have happened to a nicer company.

Apart from Virgin.

[William Old]

@Monkey

> Modern SQL is Microsoft

WTF...?

So, "Modern" is what the "M" is for in "MySQL"..? What does the "y" stand for, then?

Jeez... I've just looked at one of the menus on "MS Word" (someone else's machine, of course, I use OpenOffice on SuSE10.3), and looked under "Language"... So it seems that Microsoft wrote "English", as well... :-(

[Monkey]

William

Oh for christs sake, you missed the point TOTALLY.

Yes I know IBM write the original SQL language but in the context of TODAY, now, when this article was written and when the VERY first idiot posted twisting it to bash the PS3, Microsoft have responsibility for SQL server and the general authoring and development of transact query in the SQL server context. That is was I meant by 'modern' my good man. And the quip about the English language... you totally missed the point and just like the first poster in here twisted something comment to suit your own moan.

Jesus fucking christ, the article was about SQL injection vulnerabilities hitting various company website, not console bashing. I merely pointed out people were throwing rocks for the wrong reasons and also highlighted the IRONY of the first post, slagging the PS3 and Sony bigging up the 360. When in actual fact it is a MS controlled product in SQL (as in the SQL of TODAY, as in what I meant by 'modern' that is all!), that has a large degree of blame at the heart of the matter.

I like a good tit for tat tongue in cheek bit of banter, and don't normally react. But today I'm going to cause you missed the point, just like all the other people doing console cock waving. Bollocks!

So there, right back at you Willy and you can stick your flame up your arse whilst you're at it!

[Mark]

Bugger ME

anyone?