The PSN account dav1d_123 used to be the top trophy holder. But a hacker retaliated after the account holder, David Tremblay, spoke out about the poor security on Sony’s PlayStation platform.
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.
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.
