Rant: PSN getting DDoS attacked again

[mmntech]

Heard PSN was having a flash sale. Mass Effect Trilogy on sale for under $5. Fantastic. Haven't played the third one yet. Go to log on but I'm getting repeatedly kicked out of the store. Finally got to the cart and now it's hanging on the loading screen.

Yep, this is a lot like the last outage, and those dirtbags Lizard Squad are claiming responsibility for it. Another DDoS attack. I'm getting real tired of this horse s---.

Of course the PlayStation Network has always been a steaming hunk of garbage. Slow download speeds, constant "maintenance" outages, amateur security (still no two-factor authentication!). You'd think they'd have improved things now that we have to pay for it. How come Xbox Live and Steam never seem to have these problems?

#FirstWorldProblems

 

[Zodiark1593]

Hacker groups apparently have it out for Sony. I doubt Sony's security is sub par, however; from what I know (which is probably not much btw), past business decisions have made them a target.

 

[Lil Frier]

IDK about saying it isn't sub-par. They've seemingly had more security issues (not DDoS) than the other services. That MIGHT just be due to hacker preferences, but it might also be mediocre security solutions in the past. It's gotten better, it seems, but I don't think it was getting hacked because it was super-secure and hackers just enjoyed the challenge there.

 

[smakme7757]

DDOS of a service isn't really a security issue though. It's just sending traffic until the server collapses.

The problem with DDOS is that to handle it you have a few choices. But one of the major ones is to expand the server infrastructure to handle DDOS style load and that is based on an economic evaluation.

Is it wothwhile investing another $10,000,000 in hardware and load balancing (in sony's case, world wide infrastructure) and/or DDOS mitigation services to sustain PSN during a week of DDOS. Or is it more cost effective to just take the DDOS and any bad press for that week and then continue on as usual.

It's also why a lot of services like Battle.net get crushed on opening night, but work fine after the initial rush. Blizzard could buy another 100 servers, but they know that after release night they will just stand there doing nothing.

More than likely the extra cost of hardware, services and consultants is more than the company would loose if they just give out a few freebies to soften the blow on consumers after a target DDOS attack.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I must have missed this because I didn't notice an issues. Are PSN servers regional things? Like can I have a good connection while someone else has a poor one from a different location?

 

[mmntech]

DDOS of a service isn't really a security issue though. It's just sending traffic until the server collapses.

That is indeed correct. I was talking more in general by that point. 😛

My big beef is that PSN still lacks two-factor authentication, which I consider to be an absolute basic security measure for online services today.

 

[Lil Frier]

Agreed, I was speaking towards their past security breaches myself, not calling a DDoS the fault of a security system. Two-factor authentication's gotten pretty common, like you said, though I've somewhat avoided using it thus far. The Blizzard Mobile Authenticator broke on me (the codes stopped working), and getting it taken from my account was annoying to deal with. On top of that, I just generally hate putting personal information out there for companies, so things that want a phone number (like Yahoo has started asking for) get the stink eye from me.