Sony has suspended over 90.000 online user accounts, following what it describes as 'a large amount of unauthorised sign-in attempts'.
The move affects its PlayStation Network, Sony Entertainment Network and Sony Online Entertainment services, the company saying that less than 0.1% of all accounts are affected.
It says 'There were approximately 93,000 accounts' – around 60,000 PSN/SEN accounts, and some 33,000 SOE accounts – 'where the attempts succeeded in verifying valid sign-in IDs and passwords, and we have temporarily locked these accounts.
'As a preventative measure, we will be sending email notifications to these account holders and will be requiring secure password resets or informing consumers of password reset procedures.'
It says the attacks appeared to include 'a large amount of data obtained from one or more compromised lists from other companies, sites or sources', and that 'These were unauthorised attempts to verify valid user accounts on our services using very large sets of sign-in IDs and passwords.'
The company says that credit card numbers associated with the affected accounts are not at risk, and 'only a small fraction' of the accounts showed additional activity before the company was able to lock them.
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