Sony BMG Greece website hacked, user data revealed

By Andrew Couts May 23, 2011

Sony‘s nightmare continues this week, with with news out today that hackers infiltrated the Sony BMG Greece on May 5, and stole users’ personal data, some of which was then posted online this weekend.

News of the hack comes via Hacker News, which reports that an anonymous user, who goes by the name b4d_vipera, uploaded a database of user information to pastebin.com. The database includes the names and email addresses of people registered to the SonyMusic.gr website.

According to Naked Security‘s Chester Wisniewski, the hackers appear to have used an SQL injection tool to discover the flaw in Sony’s security. This type of hack is “not something that requires a particularly skillful attacker,” writes Wisniewski, “but simply the diligence to comb through Sony website after website until a security flaw is found.”

Sony has become the target of choice for hackers, who hope to expose the company’s security flaws. On Friday security researchers discovered a phishing attack site stored on Sony’s server, which was accessible through one of Sony’s Thailand websites. And only days before that, Sony was forced to shut down a number of its websites, including the password reset page for its crippled PlayStation Network.

All of this, of course, was preceded by two attacks on Sony’s PSN and Qirocity services, which resulted in a complete shutdown of the network, the theft of nearly 13 million credit cards, and the jeopardization of personal data of approximately 100 million users around the world.

Sony’s battle with hackers is likely far from over. As Wisniewski points out: “As long as it is popular within the hacker community to expose Sony’s flaws, we are likely to continue seeing successful attacks against them.”

Users of SonyMusic.gr should reset their passwords as soon as possible. And, if you’re planning on joining a Sony service anytime soon, you might want to wait a little while, until this whole thing blows over.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…

Computing

Dell’s most popular 2-in-1 laptop is discounted from $700 to $450

The Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 on a white background.

Today Dell has not just one of the best laptop deals but one of the cheapest ones: It’s currently possible to buy a Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 laptop for just $450 thereby saving $250 off the regular price of $700. Perfect for when you can’t decide if you need a tablet or a laptop, the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 is a true bargain. However, it’s a clearance deal so you don’t have long left to snap it up. Here’s what you need to know before you tap the buy button.

Why you should buy the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1
You won’t see the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 in our look at the best 2-in-1 laptops but that’s hardly surprising at this price. It still shares much of the same functionality and is from one of the best laptop brands. This particular model has an AMD Ryzen 5 7530U processor, 8GB of memory, and 512GB of SSD storage.

Computing

Best external hard drive deals: Portable SSDs, game drives & more

A man uses a WD My Passport external hard drive alongside his laptop.

While a lot of content has gone digital these days, including things like cloud storage services allowing us to store our files online, having a physical form of storage to keep with you is important. In a similar vein, it's frustrating that some of the best phones on the market don't even come with a lot of internal space, while most laptop deals you take advantage of also likely will land you with less than 1TB of storage. To that end, we've gone out and collected some of our favorite external hard drive deals we could find and collected them below, and some of them are even the best external hard drives on the market, so be sure to check out all our picks.
Seagate FireCuda Gaming 2TB -- $60, was $100

If you have a gaming setup that's full of RGB and you want to add a little bit to it while still extending your hard drive space, then you should absolutely grab this 2TB Seagate FireCuda Gaming. It has a customizable LED under the bottom lip of the hard drive, and it even comes with the latest 3.2 gen USB standard, so you can game off of it directly on your PC or older console. While you hopefully won't need it, it also comes with 3-years of data recovery service, which is a nice plus at this price bracket.

Computing

Start today: Save with Dell and shape a more sustainable future for us all

Dell Sustainable Future for Earth Day featured image

Earth Day may be over, but sustainability and eco-initiatives cannot be relegated to a single day, week, or month. To make any impact in today's hyperconnected and tech-centric world, they must be sustained long-term via thoughtful, engaging actions. For example, e-waste or electronic waste from old, dysfunctional, or discarded electronics is a considerable concern. Every year, millions of electronic devices or products are discarded and thrown away in landfills, many of which have hazardous or harmful materials inside that can poison the ground soil, water sources, and nearby communities. It's essential to not only intelligently dispose of these old devices but also find new ways to reuse and repurpose them so that the materials don't go to waste, let alone harm local communities.

We can all contribute to creating a more responsible, sustainable future by making the right choices, and Dell is making that possible. Thanks to advanced technology offers on PCs and accessories that are meant to help reduce e-waste. Dell has adopted the mantra “repurpose, reuse, and rethink” for a good reason. Many featured products are purposefully built with recycled plastics, shipped in renewable packaging and materials, and ultimately meant to help cut down on society's collective wastefulness so you can save big and feel good about it all.