We’re becoming accustomed to nefarious characters infecting our devices with malware, both in the written and the human sense. However, until now our games consoles have been largely unaffected.
Unfortunately, some Sony PlayStation 4 users are now receiving messages featuring unrecognised characters via the PlayStation Network, which are causing the console to crash. Those affected by the attack have been forced to perform a factory reset on their console in order to regain full functionality.
The news comes from a Reddit user (via Mashable) advising PSN users to set the messages feature to private, after almost their entire Rainbow Six: Siege team received a message containing the offending character. Only one of the team remained unaffected, and that’s because his DMs weren’t open (a lesson in online life for all of us there, perhaps?).
The gamer in question alleges the message was sent maliciously by a member of a rival team in order to undercut his team. Wow, steady on. It’s only a game, lads.
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User Huntstark1 wrote: “There is a new glitch that basically bricks your console and forces you to factory reset it. Even deleting the message from the mobile app doesn’t work. It happened to me during Rainbow Six: Siege. A player from the other team used a dummy account to send the message and crashed my entire team. We all have had to factory reset. Only one of our guys wasn’t affected and he has his messages private.”
The user in question also posted a screenshot of the message which caused the console to crash, which you can see below:
In order to set your messages to private you’ll need to go to Settings > Account Management > Privacy Settings > Enter the password > Personal Info | Messages. Here you’ll be able to set Messages to Friends or No-One.
Sony is yet to comment on the issue, which doesn’t appear to be widespread at present. However, it’s certainly better for PS4 users to be on the safe side here. As an added bonus, shutting off your DMs to non-friends means you’ll avoid all of that annoying content from scammers and bots too.
Are you ready for the PS5 yet? Or does the PS4 still have a little gas in the tank? Let us know @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
