It’s been two years now since the PSN was down for a month following an attack orchestrated by members of Anonymous. Since then, Sony has done everything in its power to protect its infrastructure and the accounts that reside on it. That sometimes includes resetting passwords without telling anybody about it until after the fact.

Some PSN users tried to login to their accounts yesterday to find that their password was no longer valid. The prevailing theory was that accounts were hacked, but Sony says that was not the case. In a post on the official PlayStation forums, the company said that this was merely a precautionary measure after detecting “irregular activity.”

We monitor PSN account for any irregular activity. If such activity is detected we will sometimes reset passwords.

This was done purely as precautionary measure and there was no specific evidence that any accounts had been compromised.

Only a small number of users were affected by this and as I said this was precautionary so there is nothing specific to worry about.

I can’t provide any further details as this would affect out ability to keep you guys safe.

It’s unfortunate that Sony can’t provide further details because it would be interesting to see what Sony counts as “irregular activity.” If no accounts were compromised, what’s the purpose behind resetting passwords? It’s also more than a little troublesome that Sony reset the passwords first and then told people about it after complaints started to appear.

While it’s good that no PSN accounts were compromised, Sony apparently still hasn’t learned a thing about communication since the 2011 hack. At that time, it took Sony several days after the initial hack to acknowledge that their systems had been compromised and it took even longer for them to announce that some customer information may have been stolen.

All of this is to say that Sony needs to announce these kind of things beforehand. If they’re going to reset passwords, they should be upfront and transparent about it. Pretty much every other tech company will tell their users if they had to reset their passwords right as soon as it happens. Waiting until people start complaining doesn’t inspire confidence and will give people terrible flashbacks to 2011.

On a final note, if you had your password reset and don’t know how to update it, check out the link in the below tweet:

Some PSN account passwords were reset today for routine protection. To update your password: http://t.co/QKIC9dagu7

— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) November 26, 2013

[Image: Sony Entertainment Network]
[h/t: Eurogamer]