All EverQuest Servers Down

[Kkthnx]

I believe they confirmed over 100,000,000 account information in total, but I've only seen confirmation of 10kish credit cards taken from european players from an old database. Of that, only 900 cards were still believed to be active.

The thing that annoys me is that they say they are working 24/7 on this issue, yet they know for a fact that the servers wouldn't be online this weekend. It's a bit disingenuous to feed us information the way that they are. They even stopped updating their retarded www.soe.com page. The last update was on 5/4. If you're working 24/7 you can do a better job of informing us of the progress than having us rely on google news.

Also, as was brought up in IRC, all they need to do is buy new hard drives, replace the compromised machines, and bring the new ones up with updated patches/security/etc. It shouldn't take this long if you have an army of people working 24/7.

They know they wouldn't be up this weekend, cause no-one is working!

 

[Mspudd14]

I believe they confirmed over 100,000,000 account information in total, but I've only seen confirmation of 10kish credit cards taken from european players from an old database. Of that, only 900 cards were still believed to be active.

Number of those affected (including the PlayStation shit which is where the majority of those affected comes from) is just over 24-26 million folks. Though of those affected I've only seen the numbers having CC info stolen are from outside of the US and just shy of the 13k mark. They have been a bit vague on the EQ alone numbers but of that they have admitted information stolen could be used to open new CC's, otherwise known as identity theft. Putting yourself on fraud alert or warning with one of the credit beaures (sp) is recommended to avoid and I have seen SoE say they will offer free something or other to help avoid that. Will make getting loans and/or new cards a pain in the ass for legit folks but for those not doing so will save their credit score rankings.

The thing that annoys me is that they say they are working 24/7 on this issue, yet they know for a fact that the servers wouldn't be online this weekend. It's a bit disingenuous to feed us information the way that they are. They even stopped updating their retarded www.soe.com page. The last update was on 5/4. If you're working 24/7 you can do a better job of informing us of the progress than having us rely on google news.

Aye have to agree with you here... I'd wager 1m real money that their working 24/7 is encompassing their outsourced internet security team and not actual SoE employee's. I understand why they are reluctant to give an ETA even one so vague as this weekend or next week but status updates should be given on a daily basis if they care about their customers if not on a 6-12hr basis. I dont give a shit what they telling the government or shareholders. I want to know what they or their security found and what they doing about it even if its generalities so I can get a feeling as to whats going on and how soon they should be back up.

Also, as was brought up in IRC, all they need to do is buy new hard drives, replace the compromised machines, and bring the new ones up with updated patches/security/etc. It shouldn't take this long if you have an army of people working 24/7.

Gaming servers are slightly different than hosting servers... but not significantly so. Specially not when security is the issue though I doubt the gaming servers are the issue here but the support servers. Either way the solution you've been told cant be true.... no offense as a super mod... hard drives dont need replaced unless there is a hardware failure which isnt the case here. As for replacing the compromised machines that is again unnecessary unless there is a hardware failure due to the ease of changing IP's or nameservers. Outdated software is easily the biggest reason for hosting accounts getting hacked and it wouldnt surprise me if SoE didnt keep up with that shit which would even fuck shit up in the gaming world. However, SoE keeps extensive backups so updating or patching that shit and restoring backups would only take a few hours tops if that per server.

If I had to guess as to why the servers have been down as long as they have its not because the gaming servers have been compromised, but because the support servers have been and they are worried about DOS attacks on the gaming servers. Plus they are trying to gather as much evidence as they can on the recent hacks for their lawsuits with Anon. In other words they trying to find out how fucked they and their clients are w/o telling their clients (us) they are. Besides bringing their servers online wouldnt do any good because they would get hit with so many request that they would be unresponsive. Hopefully they can get over their fear of the DOS attack because there is almost nothing they can do to protect against that. Almost being the keyword but anything they do will only interfere with legit logins so annoy the actual user. Still better than zero uptime!!!

**hint hint** **wink wink SOE** Implement a cap on connection request per min and enable a Firewall that blocks repeated login failures (including connection failures) from specific IP addresses to stop zombie machines from taking part on DOS attacks. Downside you may have to remove some legit IP's from the blocked list but you can whitelist them once determined as legit users and takes all of few sec.

 

[Gumball]

To my knowledge, it is close to impossible (or should be) to hack in to systems like SONYs network, or any other professional network, without any one discovering hacking attempts at a much earlier stage. This has to be done with inside information about administrative log-in information. Other possibilities are microscopical and as good as no other way to gain this kind of access. All this taken in consideration that only professionals have access and servicing their systems.

It would not surprise me if some one has bought or gotten hold of inside information from Sony some how. If this is the case, they will need to resolve the scale of the leak before they can restore the network to operational status. This would be a reasonable explanation to why it takes much longer to restore the network than from an exploit or a hack.

Most likely, their security information has not stored securely enough.

(all taken in consideration that there are no idiots working with their network security).

I might be wrong about all this, but I believe they have or had a black sheep working for them. That is what seam most likely to me.

G

 

[Sum1]

New message (for me anyway):

"The login server is currently not allowing connections. This is most likely due to a server patch that currently is in progress. Please try again later."

 

[Kkthnx]

That means they are up and running, but locked!

YAY!

 

[rob]

Gaming servers are slightly different than hosting servers... but not significantly so. Specially not when security is the issue though I doubt the gaming servers are the issue here but the support servers. Either way the solution you've been told cant be true.... no offense as a super mod... hard drives dont need replaced unless there is a hardware failure which isnt the case here. As for replacing the compromised machines that is again unnecessary unless there is a hardware failure due to the ease of changing IP's or nameservers.

I think you misunderstood. The idea is to buy new hard drives for all compromised hosts. You then take out the compromised hard drives out and give them to the FBI/Security team. You put new hard drives in, do a fresh install, update the software, implement the new security features, and install the app. This lets you get your products online again. This could have been done by Wednesday. It sounds like this company has never experienced a break in and doesn't know how to handle it.

Also, no offense taken! I shouldn't be considered a super mod. While I am super, I am barely a mod! I'm more like a janitor.

Outdated software is easily the biggest reason for hosting accounts getting hacked and it wouldnt surprise me if SoE didnt keep up with that shit which would even fuck shit up in the gaming world. However, SoE keeps extensive backups so updating or patching that shit and restoring backups would only take a few hours tops if that per server.

Restoring from backups likely isn't a viable solution here. The content of those backups, from a systems side (if they even backed that up, in large installs, it is silly to do bare metal backups most of the time). They just need to get a clean, updated, secure platform to deploy their code to and start over. Create a few islands (network wise) and you're good to go.

This is all coming from my many years experience as a Large Install Systems Administrator (LISA, yo! neckbeards unite!).

 

[lookin]

i wouldnt find it surprising if either a few from anonymous or another group who knew anonymous was doing the ddos attack a few months ago on sony took advantage of that and put some kind of back door in their security that sony missed. therby allowing them to get access at a later date and start syphoning data off.

 

[Mspudd14]

I think you misunderstood. The idea is to buy new hard drives for all compromised hosts. You then take out the compromised hard drives out and give them to the FBI/Security team. You put new hard drives in, do a fresh install, update the software, implement the new security features, and install the app. This lets you get your products online again. This could have been done by Wednesday. It sounds like this company has never experienced a break in and doesn't know how to handle it.

Ya I didnt consider they might want those drives as evidence but it makes sense. Cant believe I overlooked that being the big fan of NCIS I am!!

Restoring from backups likely isn't a viable solution here. The content of those backups, from a systems side (if they even backed that up, in large installs, it is silly to do bare metal backups most of the time). They just need to get a clean, updated, secure platform to deploy their code to and start over. Create a few islands (network wise) and you're good to go.

I still think the restore of the backups would be quicker, but that is assuming the coding itself hasnt been compromised merely their security(and we all know what people who assume things end up doing to themselves). Since they have been less than forthcoming as to what exactly happened it is all pure speculation at this point. Either way though I think we can agree it should have been resolved days ago if they knew what they were doing.

 

[Brano11]

New message (for me anyway):

"The login server is currently not allowing connections. This is most likely due to a server patch that currently is in progress. Please try again later."

I get this same message, wonder if it means they are making some good progress into getting the servers back up and online.

 

[Kkthnx]

The message certainly indicates the servets are up, but not allowing connections. Presumaby they are doing internal testing, so it should only be a couple more days if all goes well. 1 annoying thing ive noticed though. Sony are offering identity protection to us customers only, even though, on the part of SoE, it was EU customer details that were stolen from when they used to use global collect as their merchant when ubisoft ran things over here. That just seems like a big "Fuck You" to me.

 

[dulak]

Wasn't just the european, I got 2 emails stating that my accounts may have been compromised. Will be calling SoE to change some stuff around. Thankfully though, my accounts are being paid for via pre-paid debit card for just that purpose so not a lot ever on them lol

 

[purekilling187]

Still waiting it out ... I'm sure SOE is doing what they can, but the "consumer" or at least this one, is seriously contemplating a game change entirely.

 

[kegasu]

I'm getting the new message "Network error, the server is not responding, please check your connection and try again." Just thought I would let you all know. Not sure what it means.

 

[Brano11]

I'm getting the new message "Network error, the server is not responding, please check your connection and try again." Just thought I would let you all know. Not sure what it means.

I still get the patch server error

 

[wunaye]

I'm getting the new message "Network error, the server is not responding, please check your connection and try again." Just thought I would let you all know. Not sure what it means.

I get that message too.

 

[Dogstar]

1005pm -- I got that message too.

 

[rob]

http://technorati.com/entertainment/gaming/article/sony-offers-free-identity-theft-protection/

WTF, why do we need to be getting our information from random news outlets regarding this? Why isn't Sony notifying us? Why isn't Sony posting this on their webpages?

I've received ONE email from Sony stating my account information may have been compromised with instructions on how to get a free credit report.

 

[wunaye]

http://technorati.com/entertainment/gaming/article/sony-offers-free-identity-theft-protection/

WTF, why do we need to be getting our information from random news outlets regarding this? Why isn't Sony notifying us? Why isn't Sony posting this on their webpages?

I've received ONE email from Sony stating my account information may have been compromised with instructions on how to get a free credit report.

Here are the details of this program for PlayStation Network and Qriocity account holders in the United States only.

Hello Sony, we aren't all from the US!

 

[Mspudd14]

**Disclaimer**

I am an anti social prick who hates his fellow man so take the following with a grain of salt or dont bother reading.

Almost every news link is based primarily on Playstation with minor emphasis on SoE... very few specify EQ which is where most of our attention is unless I have tunnel vision and only see MQ as my only SoE use. I know MQ has their fingers in a couple other pies but am I mistaken that EQ is their focus? The other stuff to me personally is about as important as who the current leader of Ethiopia is. (rhetorical by the way to you smart asses who would answer that question(which I prolly would if not for this hyphenation)).

Like to suggest that folks start including disclaimer in their linkage in post. If specifically EQ bold type that shit... if how to avoid identity theft or how to watch out for it that could be helpful to a lot of folks so italics or something... Playstation or SoE in general I'll start a new fucking thread for you.

SoE should be giving updates every 12hrs if not more frequently with the current downtime we have been experiencing, but I am thirsty for updates and getting tired of 98% of them being PS based or just generalities of SoE with no mention of EQ. If it does not specify EQ or their servers it does not belong in this EverQuest Servers Down thread!

I can guarantee EQ is being given different focus than PS is and since they are related only by the parent company their estimated time for servers being back online is not even gonna be close.

BTW last I checked Sunday was still the weekend so if servers up by all means let the population know. Getting login errors go figure its still the weekend so who gives a fuck what errors your getting. Go raise your post count on something worthwhile! I warned you I didnt like you before I met you so save your flames cause argue'ing on the internet is like competing in the special Olympics... doesnt matter who wins your still retarded and I wont bother answering flames!

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Being that these articles are the only source of what is happening, they're as relevant as can be in relation to EQ and other Sony services, regardless whether it's SEA or SOE.

As you stated, they have not given much light to EQ specifically and seem focused solely on PSN, but given that the majority of the accounts (~77m) were from PSN, I can see why.

All it would take is one update of news on EQ specifically posted to this thread to make the title relevant again; until then, yes it is inaccurate.