Station, SOE Websites Show Signs of Life, Games Still Shuttered
Although SOE games and services remain offline, readers have noticed some curious changes.
Most obvious is that http://www.EverQuest2.com/ and http://www.SOE.com/ are no longer resolving correctly and presenting an error message. The secure version of https://www.SOE.com/ (notice the additional ‘s’) is however online and presenting the same updates we were provided with yesterday.
UPDATE: http://www.SOE.com is now resolving properly to https://www.SOE.com/.
As there has been no announcement from SOE about what the steps will be for users to change their passwords, login, secure their accounts, and start playing again (indeed SOE communication has been nothing short of atrocious — perhaps due to the stipulations of lawyers), it’s unclear what conclusions we should draw from some servers being accessible while others are not. Is this a sign that things are about to open back up, or just a sign that SOE platform aren’t properly securing websites in preparation for the service restoration?
Shabutie did some checks of the DNS information present on different SOE game websites (FreeRealms.com, EverQuest2.com, etc.) and has noticed that they no longer all point to SOE’s main website. This may indicate that things are opening up soon, but without confirmation from anyone at SOE, all we can do is guess.
Although Facebook and Twitter remain mum (their last update was 12 hours ago), maybe today’s the day? Although 4 days is not a terribly long outage considering the complexity of the security breach, the lack of communication has really exacerbated this and made the outage feel a lot longer than it has been. More as we have it…
Tags: account security, compromised accounts
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Comments (32)
isest
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One things for sure, as an soe customer I have been kept in the dark for the most part. However this has always been par for the course for SOE. There has always been a lack of communication between the player base and between SOE.
Honestly I think a little more information would have been a good thing instead of stringing us along day after day. What that says to me is dear valued customer your not valued at all.
Sorry end of my rant but that’s how I really feel.
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alan`
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In fairness to SOE they were a bit quicker off the mark than Sony where about the PSN attack the stony silence lasted for a week didn’t it?.
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jasonmicron
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Lack of communication? You mean you expected more communication from Sony regarding SOE? They pretty much shunned the PSN users for over a week before they said, “oh, hey, by the way, you might wanna check your credit”.
Meh, whatever. I’m sort of venting, sort of complaining, sort of just here in this space. Take it for what you will.
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jasonmicron
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Hopefully your readers are intelligent enough to know that the folks over at EQ2 are NOT the same folks that are implementing this silence. Those are the marketing / PR people. And they suck. So don’t jump on SMOKEJUMPER too bad when the forums come back online – he has no control over that.
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Soppy
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SOE has kept us updated by using popular social sites, such as Twitter and Facebook. EQ2Wire is also providing updates from SOE in addition to links to other websites commenting on this situation.
Isest, I’m not sure what other information you are looking for, considering the FBI is involved and they tend to discourage any sharing of facts/finding with the public until the investigation is over.
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Aaron
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It is a shame that SOE are so tight lipped on this issue. Communication regarding the development of EQ2 on the other hand was coming thick and fast.
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Frebby
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Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Apache/2.2.3 Server at http://www.soe.com Port 80
Note that they haven’t bothered to upgrade their apache install to the latest version (2.2.17). Makes you wonder if they bothered to install a firewall…
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jasonmicron
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SOE sucks on communication. When leap year happened in 2010 and PSN was down for a day, their official communication was, “just wait”. Seriously. The next day, it was back up. The reason was due to a bug in the PS3 software that interpreted leap years.
To my knowledge they still haven’t fixed that bug, however I wouldn’t know because they don’t communicate sh*t.
Take me with a grain of salt, however. I don’t play EQ2 anymore, however through either some sick addition or sad impulse I still keep up with EQ2 news.
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jasonmicron
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Sorry, SOE = Sony in my last comment.
Ok, off to LOTRO – it’s free – and it’s online right now.
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Someone
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just found this:
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Sony Network Entertainment International (SNEI, the company) announced they will shortly begin a phased restoration by region of PlayStation®Network and Qriocity™ services, beginning with gaming, music and video services to be turned on. The company also announced both a series of immediate steps to enhance security across the network and a new customer appreciation program to thank its customers for their patience and loyalty.
Following a criminal cyber-attack on the company’s data-center located in San Diego, California, U.S.A., SNEI quickly turned off the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, engaged multiple expert information security firms over the course of several days and conducted an extensive audit of the system.
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Someone
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Frebby, the actual current version of apache is 2.3.11 + they didnt even have a firewall installed, thats why it was so easy
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Someone
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http://patch.everquest2.com:7010/patch/eq2/motd/uk/updates_live.html < is now up and working + some of the servers are starting to show life
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Frebby
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2.2.17 is the latest stable Apache release, 2.3.11 is a beta. 2011 and theyäre not using a firewall? Holy cow! Wonder what kinda doofuses they got on their IT department…
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Someone
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ah yeah true, forgot about the beta hehe, yeah its crazy that they had no firewall though
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Leons
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Personally I think they do have firewalls but NOT correctly configured.
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Breanna
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https://help.station.sony.com/app/answers/list/session/L3RpbWUvMTMwNDcxMTcyOC9zaWQvTFg0ZGppdGs%3D
well at least this link ( which came from the sign in link to station help) shows they are updating stuff u can see some have todays date and some yesterdays 🙂 YAY!
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Enneract
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all of the eq2 servers can be pinged now.
fwiw.
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Rixan
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Someone, the patch notes has been up the whole time. It’s not a sign that the servers are coming back, it’s just been up since SOE services went offline.
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KingVolcano
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While I don’t mind the game being down given the circumstances, I do mind the fact SOE has only made updates on an infrequent basis. Have a little respect for your customers….throw us a friggin bone.
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omgwtflol
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SOE websites showing signs of life? Have you even looked at the site yourself, wtf are you smokin’?
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Feldon
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https://auth.station.sony.com/login is accessible, although it doesn’t work yet.
Station Store is now online.
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milliebii
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People should remember “when you are up to your ass in alligators it is very difficult to remember the objective was to drain the swamp”.
Big problem, no cash flow, management acting like mating elephants. Consultants and investigators everywhere, and then the lawyers.
Be happy they remember us at all and give them some sympathy we are in withdrawal they are in techie hell.
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Bash
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How did you get to the Station Store, keeps sending me here http://www.soe.com/securityupdate/
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milliebii
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Last time I was there in techie hell, I was lucky to get home long enough to have a shower, change my underwear, kiss the dog and pat the wife, and that every other day.
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Bash
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face book updated not today!!!
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TB
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Yes SOE/Sony are in techie hell (partly self inflicted by running old/conflicting software versions on their servers). And they are hemorrhaging revenue, so they must be pretty focused on fixing it ASAP.
But be that as it may, it does not excuse a multinational company having zero PR strategies for disaster management. There are fundamental steps to take in cases such as this, they revolve around the key issue of keeping your customers. SOE need to be in constant communication with their (valuable) customers, to reassure them that the issues are being fixed, to update them on the progress being made, and to tell them that SOE will be bigger, better, and more exciting than ever once they are through this. They need to invite the customer along on this ride, to make the customer feel part of the team.
You can even turn a disaster like this into an opportunity to create a closer bond with your customers. Many are rooting for SOE; many think the hackers are despicable; many customers are actually still loyal through this. They want SOE to beat this, to come out on top. Yet what SOE are doing is alienating them and driving them away. They are communicating a message by their silence, which is this: “This event is overwhelming us, and we don’t care about our customers enough to even update them”
This event needs to be documented and used as a case study in marketing courses as it is a textbook case in the worst possible PR & communication management strategy to take during a catastrophic event.
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Brienae
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I think they’re telling us as much as they can. The problem is one they have the FBI there investigating. I don’t know much about them but my understanding is generally they have everyone keep their mouth shut. Two the lawyers, they have a pending lawsuit so it’s highly possible their lawyers are advising them to keep quiet. In other words cut them slack they may not have a choice as to what they can say.
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Bash
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New update on FB…not this weekend.
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alan`
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Yup just read that update Bash not looking good
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Bash
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Well, the real issue is that they are trying to push this off on the hackers, when in all honesty it WAS SONY who failed us. And for them saying they are working around the clock, is quite funny, because all week they post will not be up TODAY, and all of a sudden its the weekend and now they can say this WEEKEND..lol blow more smoke up our ass SOE, around the clock = MON – FRI..and you will start working around the clock after the WEEKEND = Mon
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Lathain
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they take the week end off, they dont think it’s an exeptionnal situation :p
you didnt know ? soe dont work the week end. Even when it’s the end of the world.
If it was me they would have worked on that issue 24h by day instead of probably 6…
Since start of this they have call for expert, wait, call, wait. Tell us soon !. Wait…. sleep, wait, tell us soon … and it’s week end !
Look like expert have lot of data to mine anyway.
They dont have raid drive ? expert could mine the save while they work on the main thing…
So yes not befor fri… if they come back from there week end and not take vacation…
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online games
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What a data of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious experience about unexpected feelings.
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