Philip Reitinger, CISO of Sony, has announced that about 93,000 accounts on Sony’s systems have been compromised.  They monitored a suspect massive set of trials of login/passwords.  Most of them were unsuccessful, but about 93,000 succeeded.  Most probably, the attackers get access to a database of plugin/passwords of another web site (such information is available on the Darknet).

Some people use the same login/password for different sites.  These persons may be the victims of this attack.

We must congratulate Sony for its reaction:

• Transparency;  they were clear on what happened, and provided the data.  The reaction of customers was extremely positive
• Monitoring:  this proves that Sony is carefully monitoring activities to detect strange behaviour or patterns.  This is key in security.

Lessons:

• Customers are ready to hear the truth in case of attack.  I would even guess that they would rather be aware than listen about it once it is far too late.
• Do not use the same password for all sites, at least not for the critical ones.