Millions possibly all PS3 console IDs leaked causing consoles to be banned

[Jerry_Appleby]

I've been using my PS3 daily for the last 3 months, haven't had any issues whatsoever!

 

 

3 hours ago, SnowxSakura said:

4-5 weeks ago for castlevania harmony of despair helping a boost group to fill up the room

Any chance you'd be willing to help me get that skeleton trophy?  I've been wanting to start that game for so long but didn't want to do it until I knew I could get that one online trophy done  

[Floorkiller74]

4 minutes ago, Jerry_Appleby said:

I've been using my PS3 daily for the last 3 months, haven't had any issues whatsoever!

 

 

Any chance you'd be willing to help me get that skeleton trophy?  I've been wanting to start that game for so long but didn't want to do it until I knew I could get that one online trophy done  

 

 

I'm pretty sure the post you are quoting refers to his console being banned. 

[DaivRules]

22 minutes ago, colinnola said:

Could this be a case of the network identifying two instances of the same device, and handing out an automated short term ban? 

I had this same thought and it would be a reasonable response from anyone in charge of the security of a network. Notifying the banned users also makes sense unless Sony doesn’t actually have a database joining profile contact info with a console ID… 

[GUDGER666]

It has been 48hrs since mine was banned. Just tried to sign in and its no longer showing as banned. Instead, all the accounts are saying the sign in info is incorrect. Tested the accounts on my other PS3, PS4 and they are fine. Also checked to see if 2 step was activated and its not apart from on my main (not tried to sign in). Very strange. 

 

Edit. I've activated 2 step on one of my other accounts and the PS3 is back online. Weird.

 

I don't think i want to sign in on my main account, i think i will just delete it and then deactivate it via the website. Will decide later when i contact Sony to find out what happened. 

Edited June 21, 2021 by GUDGER666

[Floorkiller74]

Just now, NERVergoproxy said:

Just checked my 3 PS3, and they are all OK!!! Thought I give them all a trophy sync though and oooo boy does it take forever to sync!!! That or everyone using their PS3 again and sony's ps3 server is exploding with lag.

 

 

Nope, it just takes forever now, lol

[GUDGER666]

2 minutes ago, NERVergoproxy said:

Just checked my 3 PS3, and they are all OK!!! Thought I give them all a trophy sync though and oooo boy does it take forever to sync!!! That or everyone using their PS3 again and sony's ps3 server is exploding with lag.

It took me 6hrs to re sync my trophies to my other PS3. Also takes a few min just for a few new trophies.  On PS Now though when you sync PS3 trophies its really fast. 

[GUDGER666]

Right... So after getting one of my accounts to sign in i left it signed in for a bit. I've just checked its still online and it not, tried to sign in and again saying info is wrong, went to sign in on website and it says account is locked! What the hell is going on. 

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

Just now, GUDGER666 said:

Right... So after getting one of my accounts to sign in i left it signed in for a bit. I've just checked its still online and it not, tried to sign in and again saying info is wrong, went to sign in on website and it says account is locked! What the hell is going on. 

 

May be possible your account was comprised somehow. Recommend changing the password ASAP if you can, and enable 2FA, but I imagine you've likely already done/tried that. And of course, if you know of any other accounts you use that may have used the same password, change those as well.

 

Definitely contact Sony about this when you can.

[GUDGER666]

6 minutes ago, SuperSmexy500 said:

 

May be possible your account was comprised somehow. Recommend changing the password ASAP if you can, and enable 2FA, but I imagine you've likely already done/tried that. And of course, if you know of any other accounts you use that may have used the same password, change those as well.

 

Definitely contact Sony about this when you can.

The account i used hasn't been used for ages. But like i said every account was saying info is incorrect. Also i setup 2 step on this one. Got the account working again and setup another password. Not trying any other account until i speak to Sony. Didn't want to be doing this s##t at 6am! Will let you know what they say later, that's if i can get any info. 

[Maahniac]

My PS3 still works, but is it a good idea to remove our PSN profile from our PS3, until we know more about this, or is that irrelevant? 

[SnowxSakura]

11 hours ago, Play3GianniGreed said:

 

Did you know the people you played with? Maybe some of them used CFW and got you involved? 

 

Actually, I don't know if that's the case. Could you get banned only for playing with people with CFW? Like maybe if they hack the lobby or something to get more exp from a match, things like that? 

I really don't know, I haven't played online very much, I just play the minimum requirement for game that I like to platinum. If the game isn't worth it, I just play single player and then move on to the next game. 

It was a boosting group from this site

 

@Jerry_ApplebyI can but it requires 6 players

Edited June 21, 2021 by SnowxSakura

[Squarevii87]

My ps3 still works fine and my ps plus games too

I dint have ps plus for 1 year until january

Everything (still) ok

Edited June 21, 2021 by Squarevii87

[FeelTheCosmos]

Whoo, OK, I finally got through the rest of the (currently) 263 posts in this thread.  Here's the update on my situation:

 

Like OP, I checked last night on the slim that was banned last weekend:  unbanned.  I also checked on the super slim that was banned Friday:  unbanned.  Felt pretty good about it until I saw this:

 

8 hours ago, GUDGER666 said:

Right... So after getting one of my accounts to sign in i left it signed in for a bit. I've just checked its still online and it not, tried to sign in and again saying info is wrong, went to sign in on website and it says account is locked! What the hell is going on. 

 

I was thinking either 1) the leak is legit but the bans are temporary (3 or 7 days in my case), or 2) someone at Sony tripped and fell and banned like 10,000 consoles or something and they fixed them all on Sunday.  Possibly in response to the news articles that are referenced in earlier posts.  

 

But let's hope that the account lock thing isn't a follow up to the console thing.  I'd hate to get home tonight and not be able to sign in again.  I was so happy last night when both PS3's were working again, it would suck to be back to square one for a different reason.

 

I will mention this again to the people in this thread who insist on speculating about the legitimacy of this issue or Sony's attitude to its customers or legacy consoles:  please stop adding volume to this thread with this off topic stuff:  we're just trying to figure out if this is a widespread issue or not and find a solution.  All that filler makes the issue even harder to figure out, so I'd appreciate continuing that in your own discussion.  If you've been console banned on PS3, please stick around and hopefully we can figure out what's going on.  If you haven't please read more and type less.  Thanks.

 

TL:DR So far, it looks like about 10 consoles have been banned that were played regularly, maybe 20 more that hadn't been checked in years.  So far 3 of them have been unbanned, but one is now account banned instead.  Hopefully that sums it up, it's hard to read all of it.

[UnstoppableRock1]

7 minutes ago, FeelTheCosmos said:

 

The more we discuss this issue, the less it seems to be making sense to be honest 

Those who had their consoles banned need to reach out to Sony's customer support and ask for an explanation, otherwise we will never know what's going on 

[FeelTheCosmos]

6 minutes ago, UnstoppableRock1 said:

The more we discuss this issue, the less it seems to be making sense to be honest 

Those who had their consoles banned need to reach out to Sony's customer support and ask for an explanation, otherwise we will never know what's going on 

Will do, it's only 6:30 their time in USA, so I'm going to take Daivrules' advice and wait till the live chat box pops up.  I am at work though, so I might have to, you know, work and stuff.

 

Anyway, if I get in touch with Sony today I'll let you all know.  I don't have high hopes of getting a comprehensive answer, but at least we can see what they say and go from there.  Hopefully Gudger will get an answer on the account issue as well.  Fingers crossed!  (Or thumbs pressed for the Polish community out there  ).

[GUDGER666]

Just a little update before i contact them. PS3 is still unbanned. The accounts on the PS3 that was banned still say incorrect info. On my other PS3 they now say password is no longer valid and i must reset it. So to me it looks like they know something has happened. My main account which already had 2 step is unaffected. 

[Null_Spectre]

Just now, GUDGER666 said:

Just a little update before i contact them. PS3 is still unbanned. The accounts on the PS3 that was banned still say incorrect info. On my other PS3 they now say password is no longer valid and i must reset it. So to me it looks like they know something has happened. My main account which already had 2 step is unaffected. 

Activate 2FA on one of your other accounts just to see if you can log in with it, makes me wonder is Sony trying to implement mandatory 2FA on PS3s now.

[GUDGER666]

2 minutes ago, Null_Spectre said:

Activate 2FA on one of your other accounts just to see if you can log in with it, makes me wonder is Sony trying to implement mandatory 2FA on PS3s now.

On my main PS3 I can't sign in unless 2 step is activated. On my other PS3 I don't need 2 step i just need to reset password, and if i try to sign in first on their website i get account is locked and to reset password. 

[ars]

You de facto cannot read PSID unless you extract it yourself, share your saves, or let someone access your account to read one of the saves. So the only risk of leakage to people "who did nothing" comes from buying a second hand PS3. Otherwise their console or account was already compromised.

[FeelTheCosmos]

5 minutes ago, ars said:

You de facto cannot read PSID unless you extract it yourself, share your saves, or let someone access your account to read one of the saves. So the only risk of leakage to people "who did nothing" comes from buying a second hand PS3. Otherwise their console or account was already compromised.

First off, seeing your ID is like seeing a ghost, I don't think I've talked to you since the old N3H days like 7 or 8 years ago!  Nice to see you're still around

 

We're not talking about users accessing the CID here, we're talking about the info that was stored on Sony's side (allegedly in an unencrypted text file) getting leaked.   I mean, when your console signs in with an ID they have to have something to check it against, right?  That's the list everyone is talking about, not the user side.   I'm just here because both of my PS3's got banned and unbanned in a week, and it turns out I'm not alone.  At this point we're just trying to figure out if it's a big deal, little deal or no deal.

[Property_Damage]

21 hours ago, Lance_87 said:

Reddit is full of jerks. Someone even started to stalk me (even some of his  friends) because of some unpopular opinion i don't even remember to have said about the Vita, and was labeled as a "Nintendrone". The only Nintendo system i have ever owned was a Pokémon Mini gifted by some schoolmate almost two decades ago.

I had some loser on here do the same thing cuz i said something informative about the vita that maybe made it look not so great as what people make it out to be, well he was butthurt about it and went on a mission to harass me on psn to where i had to block him and a friend of his decided to chime in on the action, the system is cool but flawed to all hell and some people just dont wanna hear that apparently 

i bet its probably the same idiot who was harassing you

Edited June 21, 2021 by Property_Damage

[GUDGER666]

Right I've just spoke to them via live chat. They couldn't tell me anything yet and i have to wait a few days while they look into it. My account was checked and is all fine. So all i can do is wait.  I would definitely recommend live chat though, better than call support and miles better than email. Link to live chat

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

29 minutes ago, GUDGER666 said:

Right I've just spoke to them via live chat. They couldn't tell me anything yet and i have to wait a few days while they look into it. My account was checked and is all fine. So all i can do is wait.  I would definitely recommend live chat though, better than call support and miles better than email. Link to live chat

 

So they essentially told you your account wasn't hacked or anything?

 

Probably unrelated, but this kind of reminds me of late 2013, just before the PS4 released in the UK, I was logging into my PS3 to play it one afternoon as usual, and it told me the password was incorrect. Checked my Vita, same deal. Checked the website, also incorrect. I was now worried I had somehow been hacked. I checked my emails to see if there was anything about my password being changed, but there wasn't. Contacted Sony, they were kinda vague but told me it was unlikely I had been hacked. After resetting my password, everything seemed fine. I then noticed this article had been posted when trying to see if this had happened to anyone else.

Sony's response was just "We monitor PSN accounts for any irregular activity. If such activity is detected we will sometimes reset passwords". But I can't imagine there being any "irregular activity" on my account, or for the several others who had their password randomly reset. It's never happened again since either. There was some speculation that Sony was doing something to the network in preparation for the PS4, and accidentally "soft reset" a few accounts. I don't think it ever really was made clear what exactly happened, but either way, it's likely Sony screwed up somewhere. The fact no one received any emails about their passwords being reset has always led me to believe it wasn't intentional at all, if they were resetting passwords because of "irregular activity", why would they not inform customers of this?

 

I have to wonder if this isn't a similar situation of Sony somehow screwing over some accounts and/or PS3s. The PS3 store was originally going to shut down in less than a month, maybe they were planning on doing something to the network to remove all those games from the store (at least to purchase). There's been a lot of weird issues with PS3 lately in general (patches not downloading, PS+ games disappearing for those that have their memberships lapse, difficulty purchasing from the store, etc.), I'm not sure if they're all related, but it is strange nonetheless. I'm a complete amateur when it comes to IT stuff though, so take what I say with a grain of salt, just speculating.

Edited June 21, 2021 by SuperSmexy500

[ars]

21 minutes ago, FeelTheCosmos said:

First off, seeing your ID is like seeing a ghost, I don't think I've talked to you since the old N3H days like 7 or 8 years ago!  Nice to see you're still around

 

We're not talking about users accessing the CID here, we're talking about the info that was stored on Sony's side (allegedly in an unencrypted text file) getting leaked.   I mean, when your console signs in with an ID they have to have something to check it against, right?  That's the list everyone is talking about, not the user side.   I'm just here because both of my PS3's got banned and unbanned in a week, and it turns out I'm not alone.  At this point we're just trying to figure out if it's a big deal, little deal or no deal.

 

Hehe never quit, long time no see  N3H is still around, we just moved to Discord.

 

Essentially the CID is just like IMEI for mobile phones or MAC for network devices, a unique identifier to make it function in the network. It's probably checked against multiple databases but in principle, a checksum and a banlist will suffice to verify "legit" devices. Definitely it's not a text file those connection attempts are checked against

So then the question is what is that text file, from where, how many CIDs it contains and *what* CIDs are they. The youtuber answers none of the important questions, so he's hardly a source for anything. If a handful of people got their consoles banned from a day to a few, it's probably Sony testing out something. Hacked console IDs get permabanned on detection...

[FeelTheCosmos]

Yeah, thanks for the info, I'm starting to lean more towards this isn't a big deal after all.  I couldn't find live chat and I just got hung up on with the 800 number, so I think I'm just going to count myself fortunate that it fixed itself and hope the same happens to the rest of us on here.  Maybe someday we'll know what it was, but most likely not.

 

FYI, for those that are worried about Sony dropping support for PS3, banning a console is actually an act of support.  Maybe not for you specifically, but for the platform.  Dropping support usually includes dropping all resources related to it, meaning if they care enough to ban a console still, they should care enough to reverse the ban if you bug them enough.  They just don't talk about it in public for the same reason the CRT doesn't talk about things on this website:  they don't want to give cheaters any information that would make them better at getting away with it.  In my experience with Sony, they've always been helpful (and I've had maybe 10 issues with them in the past 10 years), it's just a right pain to get a person on the other end of the line.