Three British members of the LulzSec hacking group have plead guilty to numerous charges of hacking and DDOS attacks on the likes of Sony, Bethesda, CCP and Nintendo (not to mention SOCA and the NHS).

Well it was only a matter of time. Just as with Halo 4 before it, Gears of War: Judgment has leaked online, although it's done so a good month ahead of release; and, as with the Halo 4 debacle, Microsoft are threatening gamers with lifelong account and console bans if they're caught with illicit code.

Sony have been fined over the 2011 incidents that saw the PSN hacked by outsiders and millions of consumers' secure data breached and compromised.

The UK Information Commissioners Office stated at the time that there would be an investigation into the "external intrusions", and they settled on  £250,000 fine this week, labelling the crisis the "most serious breach" they've ever had to deal with, and releasing a video statement on  the matter this morning.

Myriad Origin customers are reporting that their accounts have been hacked over the last week, receiving emails confirming that their username and/or passwords have been successfully changed. They've been unable to log in to their accounts afterwards. [via NeoGAF]

Worryingly, dates of birth and security questions are also being changed, meaning that restoring account access and proving their own identity is proving to be difficult in many cases. EA urge affected consumers to contact their support centre.

Have you been affected by this issue?

Sony is getting tough on PS3 hackers following new custom firmware doing the rounds, threatening lifetime PSN bans for those involved.

Gearbox have pushed out a Borderlands 2 title update to kill off a prevalent Xbox 360 version exploit.  Hackers were able to access an unfinished Hardcore Mode, which wouldn't have been a major problem but for the little fact that users would corrupt save files and badass ranks of anyone who accidentally joined them in-game.

Seeing as this is the only purpose of the latest update, it's clear that Gearbox treated the issue as their highest priority.

But "You're Never Going To Win This Battle"

FIFA 12's Ultimate Team DLC quickly became a prime target for phishers and hackers when it released last year, and EA are throwing "a lot of resources" behind ensuring that the same won't happen with FIFA 13. However, they're under no illusions that stopping the practice outright will be a losing battle.

Videos showing hacked PS3 titles such as Red Dead Redemption, Mortal Kombat, Battlefield 3 and Batman: Arkham Asylum running on a Playstation Vita have been recorded and uploaded to YouTube.

Forum Troubles Turn Out To Go A Little Further

Users of Valve’s online gaming platform Steam were greeted with a message from studio head Gabe Newell last night informing them that the recent decision to turn off the official forums went a little beyond defacing the community space. We have the full statement after the jump.

"Evolving Threats" From External Source

We recently reported that a number of Xbox Live accounts have been hacked in order to purchase FIFA 12 Ultimate Team DLC using the attached payment schemes... but Microsoft are certain that the problem isn't on their end. In a recent statement, the Redmond giant suggests that the personal details used in a "limited number" of incidents haven't stemmed from a weakness in their online service and that they're working directly with the affected parties.

Data Obtained From "Other Companies"

Sony's Chief Security Officer has issued a statement declaring that approximately 93,000 Sony accounts have been recently accessed by hackers - and that they've locked the offending IDs after "unauthorized purchases" were made. Apparently the personal information used to gain access to the accounts was gleaned from "other companies, sites or other sources." 60,000 of these accounts were PlayStation Network or Sony Entertainment Network accounts, whereas 33,000 were for Sony Online Entertainment. The total figure corresponds to one tenth of one per cent of Sony's total PSN, SEN and SOE audience.

Before you start panicking, your credit card details are perfectly safe.

"Please note, if you have a credit card associated with your account, your credit card number is not at risk. We will work with any users whom we confirm have had unauthorized purchases made to restore amounts in the PSN/SEN or SOE wallet."

We'll keep you posted. Probably worth updating your password, though, just in case. Make sure that it's a unique password that you don't use for any other sites or accounts.

It appears Codemasters have lost an estimated three million digital copies of racer DIRT 3 after hackers after hackers swiped reserved download codes for the game intended for release as part of a promotion with graphics card manufacturers, AMD. The codes were left on a public Codemasters server without protection, which has since been ransacked by opportunistic hackers.

Earlier this month, Lulz Security - the hacking organization who claimed to have hacked Sony earlier this month and have been a thorn in the side of online services for the past few weeks or so - have announced they're bringing an end to their brief reign of chaos. The group - who support and have loose ties with fellow hacker cabal, Anonymous - released a statement via torrent site, Pirate Bay, detailing their departure.

Another day, another publisher hacked. This time, it's not Sony or SEGA, but EA. Or, to be more specific, Bioware, and their Neverwinter Nights' forums. It might not sound like much, but every regular user of Bioware's forums has an EA Account, containing confidential information such as mailing and billing addresses, not to mention vital in-game progress or purchased products. The publisher has admitted the attack on their forums resulted in a number of EA Accounts being hacked, but information pertaining to credit cards and the like is safe.

A new compulsory firmware update greeted PS3 gamers today. The US PlayStation blog said: “With this minor update, system stability during use of PS3 format software and network services has been improved.”

The hacker group that successfully managed to worm its way into PBS and, amongst other nefarious activities, publish a mildly amusing story on how Tupac and Biggie had been found alive, living together in New Zealand, has sworn to target Sony next.

Hacker group LulzSec have announced plans to target the Japanese electronics giant, with their mission neatly encapsulated in a single hashtag: #Sownage (Sony + ownage).

It would seem that the Japanese government remains sceptical in the fading embers of PSNgate, having barred Sony from resuming normal online service in Japan until officials are happy that the security measures being implemented are fully up to scratch.

Speaking to Dow Jones, a Japanese regulatory official - Kazushige Nobutani, Director of the Media and Content Industry at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (try putting that on a badge) - outlined two specific areas of concern that would require further explanation from Sony before the PSN is fully restored.

The release of mandatory firmware update v. 3.61 - a PS3 update which makes a password change compulsory upon restoration of the PlayStation Network - has heralded the first realised steps of the PSN's return.

Sony announced in the early hours of the morning that PSN and Qriocity services would be restored in phrases, country by country, starting with the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East, with the return of online multiplayer the highest priority following the firmware update. Indeed, the first phase will look to address the following services:

• Sign-in for PlayStation®Network and Qriocity services, including the resetting of passwords
• Restoration of online game-play across PS3 and PSP
• Playback rental video content, if within rental period, of PlayStation Network Video Delivery Service on PS3, PSP and MediaGo
• Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity, for current subscribers, on PS3 and PC
• Access to 3rd party services such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and MLB.tv
• 'Friends' category on PS3, including Friends List, Chat Functionality, Trophy Comparison, etc
• PlayStation Home

Announcing the updated restoration plan, Sony's Kaz Hirai took the opportunity to thank PSN users everywhere for their patience during this trying period:

'I can't thank you enough for your patience and support during this time. We know even the most loyal customers have been frustrated by this process and are anxious to use their Sony products and services again. We are taking aggressive action at all levels to address the concerns that were raised by this incident, and are making consumer data protection a full time, company-wide commitment.

'While we understand the importance of getting our services back online, we did not rush to do so at the expense of extensively and aggressively testing our enhanced security measures. Our consumers' safety remains our number one priority.

'We want to assure our customers that their personal information is being protected with some of the best security technologies available today, so that everyone can feel comfortable enjoying all that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have to offer.'

Those security updates now include 'Advanced Security Technology', 'Increased Levels of Encryption', 'Additional Firewalls' and 'Early Warning Systems'.

Sony has confirmed that it expects PSN services to have been fully rolled out once more by the end of May.

Hugs all round then? [PlayStation Blog]

Matt's already brought you the scoop on the hackers who cracked into the Deus Ex: Human Revolution site and snagged confidential date from over 80, 000 users. But the group of individuals - rumoured to be an offshoot from hacker cabal Anonymous - have moved to reassure fans of the game that Eidos' title is at no risk, whatsoever. It had been rumoured that the hackers had access to Human Revolution's code and could, if willing, leak it online.

But Venuism, a hacker linked to the group and the attack on Eidos' site, claims they're being "framed" by rivals, and promise they don't want to "scam you, steal credit cards and do dirty stuff with them". There appears to be a bit of internal strife amongst those responsible for hacking the system, and Venuism admits data from the hack may have been leaked. We'll have more for you on this as it develops. [Eurogamer]

Sony Online Entertainment released a statement yesterday thanking their player base for their patience, and reassuring them that they would be committed to compensation, although the service would remain offline - rendering SOE's MMOs rather unplayable - for 'a few more days'.

In light of the recent outage of Sony Online Entertainment's game services due to April's cyber-attack, we are committed to compensating our loyal player base for the inconvenience caused by the data breach and lost game time while we improve our security measures.

We are currently in the process of an extensive upgrade to our network to further protect your information from future attacks. It will likely be at least a few more days before we restore our services.

This follows SOE's announcement on May 2nd of an intrusion into their systems and the theft of 24.6 million customers personal details. SOE also announced that it 'will provide its U.S.-based Station Account holders with complimentary enrollment in an identity theft protection program through Debix', with similar programmes for Station Account holders outside of the States to be announced once formalised.