Wahlin, who served as a counter-intelligence officer in the US Military for eight years during the Cold War, discussed how PSN can be protected from intrusion.
He first identified the motivations of groups like Anonymous, whom he stated were not in it for the money. “The types of attacks we see are by groups with social agendas. The methods they use aren’t the same as the state-sponsored guys. At Sony, we are modifying our programs to deal less with state-sponsored (attacks) and more with socially-motivated hackers. It will be different,” informed Wahlin.
He added, ”An important distinction is that groups like Anonymous aren’t in it for money; they simply want to do damage and make a statement. “
This has resulted in a shift in focus, forcing security to ”think more like social engineers”. As a result, every Sony staffer is a potential target, and each staffer has different levels of access and therefore vulnerability.
To combat this, Wahlin employs analytics and surveillance. He noted, “We are looking to see if there are there key elements within a person’s interaction with their environment. That could be interaction with badging systems, with telephones - when and who do they call- and with systems like browser habits and applications used. All these things allow us to set up a pattern for users, so when something different happens we can respond.”
The data is analyzed, and any behavior that is abnormal is given a red flag. ”If we detect unusual activity, it may be that someone’s been owned by a Trojan that we don’t know about, and we can stop data flying out the door,” said Wahlin.
It remains to be seen how Wahlin’s methods will work with PlayStation Network as constructed. Given the vulnerabilities of the system, it’s almost certain that the next PSN will be less open and more secure.
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