If you’ve been following popular media for the past few weeks, you’ve surely seen news of the recent HBO leaks.  Including the full personal details of the entire Game of Thrones cast, a leaked episode of Game of Thrones, and a plethora of other sensitive content, HBO hasn’t been having a great month.  Recently, hacker security group “OurMine” commandeered HBO’s verified Twitter accounts, as a way of proving the lackluster security of the premium television company.  Then, early today, verified Playstation Twitter accounts started getting the business as well.

OurMine Hacks Playstation

At the time of writing, not too much is known about what exactly OurMine has their hands on.  In a flurry of tweets and Facebook posts, OurMine has established that they have “leaked the Playstation databases”.  Through these tweets, they encourage security teams at Playstation to reach out to them.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this hack won’t be as bad as the one we saw in 2011, in which Playstation Network was forced to shut down following a security breach.  That security breach led to the credit card and personal information of many millions of gamers on the service.

What Does This Mean For You?

If you’re worried about your account security, you should be.  However, it doesn’t seem like OurMine is planning on sharing the database content they’ve uncovered.  Instead, you should definitely be concerned about Sony’s handling of their Playstation security.  In 2011, you could argue that lax security was a result of free online; you get what you paid for, essentially.  After several years of paid memberships (including price raises), you would be under the impression that Sony learned from their mistakes.  Apparently, that’s not true.

It’s a save bet to change your password and try to lock down your account as much as possible, but those are good words of advice in general.  Now that content may be compromised, I recommend removing active credit cards or Paypal accounts from your Playstation account until this is all worked out.

On one hand, I’m annoyed with OurMine and their obviously illegal ways of exposing security problems with big companies.  On the other hand, said companies should spend a bit more time improving their security, especially as we move forward towards a more connected world.  I can’t expect Sony to patch every leak every time, but no one group should be able to take over their entire social media presence.