(Photo by Stanislav Kogiku/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
UPDATE 3/15: David Tremblay regained access to his PlayStation Network account, but only briefly. He suspects Sony took action and lifted the ban after this story was published. But it appears the hacker continues to target his PSN by again weaponizing Sony’s reporting system to trigger a new suspension.
"I just noticed that I am banned once again this morning," Tremblay told PCMag. "This time it's a one week ban for the same reason as before. It does say if I keep getting those I'll get permanently banned too so this is quite concerning."
(Sony/Tremblay)"Even if I somehow lift this ban, it feels like they'll just keep coming," he later said.
So far, Sony hasn't responded to a request for comment. But the new account suspension suggests the company hasn't added any new safeguards to prevent further attacks of his account. In the meantime, his PSN has returned to the trophy leaderboard and currently ranks fourth.
Original story:
A hacker has allegedly duped Sony into banning a PlayStation Network account that once held the record for most gaming trophies, after the account’s owner spoke out about the threat of account hijacking on Sony's console.
The user, David Tremblay, owned the PSN account dav1d_123, which held so many digital trophies that he even received entries in the Guinness World Records. But on Monday, he learned that Sony had “permanently suspended” the account over apparent rule violations.
However, it’s more likely that a hacker manipulated Sony into banning the account as a form of retaliation. Last week, we published a story about PlayStation account hijackings and how it's possible to bypass two-factor authentication and passkeys simply by submitting some personal information about an account to Sony’s customer support chatbot.
The story profiled Tremblay, who quit trophy-hunting after a hacker took over his own PSN account in October. The hijacking and Sony’s lackluster response were so frustrating that Tremblay has been warning gamers, "Your PSN account isn't safe,” pointing to alleged gaps in PlayStation customer support and security.
The story caught the attention of the hacker, who originally tried to extort a ransom from Tremblay but later gave up and returned Tremblay's PSN account. Over the weekend, however, the hacker told PCMag that Tremblay lied, so "now he lost his account again."
Tremblay suspects the hacker exploited a reporting function to get his account banned. PSN accounts include a direct message feature, and Tremblay believes the hacker sent rule-breaking messages to the hacker's other accounts the last time they had control of Tremblay's account. The hacker then sat on those messages until recently, when they reported the violating messages to Sony, prompting the company to initiate the ban.
(Credit: forum.psnprofiles.com)The hacker "had threatened to do exactly this if I contributed to your article,” Tremblay told me in an email. “This is something they also do to any account they hack (send ‘bomb messages’ to perma ban the account if they want to).”
So far, Sony hasn’t commented on the account suspension. But the company’s email to Tremblay said he used the PlayStation network to "attempt to sell items, accounts, or services."
"This was investigated and confirmed after careful consideration by the PlayStation Safety moderation team,” the email adds, which Tremblay finds ironic.
(Credit: Sony/Tremblay)“I have passed the last 16 years+ trophy hunting on PlayStation,” he told PCMag. “I have dedicated way too many hours than I'd like to admit (10s of thousands) to this and gotten all five related Guinness World Records. This is heartbreaking. To make matters worse, I had warned support multiple times that obviously any message sent from my account during the period I was hacked was to be disregarded. They totally ignored this. You would expect my account to be under stricter protection and have security measures in place, but it seems not."
The situation highlights ongoing concerns that Sony is failing to stop hackers from preying on PSN accounts. In certain corners of social media and online forums, you can easily find dozens of likely stolen PSNs up for sale for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. In some cases, hackers are even offering free access to trafficked PSN accounts by including the owner’s personal information, such as name, email address, and transaction IDs for past purchases. These details can then be plugged into Sony’s customer support chatbot to initiate an account recovery, bypassing the password and two-factor authentication.
The hackers might be uncovering the details because once you break into a PlayStation account, you can learn sensitive user details about someone—including name, phone number, and address—if it’s been added to an account.
Sony can reveal more information if the hacker initiates a “data request access” within the privacy settings. The company will return a spreadsheet with the user's name, date of birth, and the first and last four numbers of a credit card number.
Tremblay’s situation is similar to that of another top trophy hunter, “Hakoom,” who also quit after facing an account compromise. His account was permanently suspended in 2024, and Sony allegedly refused to lift the ban, citing suspicious activity, even though Hakoom said it was clearly the work of the hacker.
“I thought PlayStation would solve the problem, it [would] come to a conclusion, and everything would be fine, but sadly nothing was solved,” he said in a November 2024 video.
In the meantime, Tremblay’s account suspension has kicked the dav1d_123 account off the PSN trophy leaderboard. Tremblay says his account is still there, “I just have no trophies,” possibly because the account suspension has made all previously earned trophies private.
Tremblay has also tried to contact Sony’s customer support, but he’s received no help so far. “I opened another chat and they closed it in my face ‘for security reasons,’” he told PCMag, later adding: “They are frankly so incompetent, I do not have high hopes.”