Sony investigates reports of strangers added as child accounts to PSN families

[Distant Kernel]

Some PlayStation owners have found unknown people added to their accounts as children. GamesRadar reports that PS5 users are seeing unfamiliar child members appear in their PlayStation Family, apparently getting past passwords and two factor authentication

Sony is reportedly investigating, according to a statement it gave to Japan's Sankei Shimbun. Based on user reports, the intruder sets up a PlayStation Family on the victim's account and adds themselves as a child member

Depending on parental control settings, that child account may be able to play games and buy from the PlayStation Store using the victim's saved payment details. Users are also worried about what personal information the child account can see

Getting rid of it is not simple. Sony's own help page says child members cannot be removed from a family, and a child account cannot become an adult account until its date of birth makes it eligible. Many affected users seem to be in Japan, but reports are not limited to there, and a similar case appeared on Reddit about three years ago

The method so far comes from user reports, not from Sony, so the full picture is unclear. If two factor authentication is indeed being bypassed, that is a serious problem. In the meantime, it is worth checking your family settings and keeping an eye on your payment history

Have you checked your PlayStation Family settings? And should Sony let users remove child accounts they never created?

Sony reportedly investigating as PS5 users report hackers posing as children being added to their PSN accounts, apparently bypassing two-factor authenticationwww.gamesradar.com