Thanks to IT House netizen Tonic Acri for the clue submission!
IT House reported on March 12 that David Tremblay, who once held the world record for the most PlayStation trophies, has had his PlayStation Network (PSN) account permanently banned. The former top trophy hunter blamed hackers and Sony's "incompetent" customer service and security teams.
According to "PC Magazine", earlier this week, Tremblay's PSN account dav1d_123 was permanently banned for allegedly violating the platform's rules.
Before this ban, Tremblay was once the person with the most PSN trophies in the world, and was even listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most platinum trophies.
But Tremblay announced his retirement from trophy collecting last October after his account was allegedly hacked.
"Your PSN account is not secure and can be hacked by anyone." Tremblay said on Twitter that hackers bypassed two-factor authentication (2FA) on his account and used phishing methods to gain access to the account through PSN online customer service.
Just last week, Tremblay gave an interview to PC Magazine, exposing serious security issues with PSN and disclosing hackers' attempts to blackmail him. Allegedly, it was because of this that the hackers caused his PlayStation account to be permanently banned.
"PC Magazine" stated that the hacker who had previously negotiated with Tremblay and returned control of the account after not receiving a ransom told the media that the former top trophy hunter lied, so "now his account is gone again."
Tremblay suspected that hackers used "bomb messages" to get his account blocked. The specific method is: the hacker sends information that violates Sony PSN regulations to the account. Even if he no longer controls the account, he can report the illegal information to Sony at any time, thereby causing the account to be banned.
Tremblay said the hacker had previously threatened to do so if he broke the news to PC Magazine.
As of the time of publication by IT Home, Sony has not yet made a public response to the ban and related security issues.
Since being banned last week, Tremblay said the number of trophies in his account has now been cleared. "I've been collecting trophies on PlayStation for over 16 years," he said. "I've put in tens of thousands of hours, more than I care to admit, and have held all five related Guinness World Records. It's heartbreaking. To make matters worse, I repeatedly reminded customer service that any messages sent from my account during the time of the breach should obviously be invalid, but they completely ignored it. Everyone would think that my account should be more strictly protected and have comprehensive security measures, but this does not seem to be the case."
