Sony is reportedly investigating an apparent PS5 security issue as users report unauthorized "child family members" being added to their PSN accounts.

That's according to a machine-translated statement sent to The Sankei Shimbun, which notes that the child accounts in question have apparently been able to bypass both passwords and two-factor authentication, as reported by affected users.

Essentially, it seems, hackers have been able to set up a PlayStation Family on unsuspecting users' PSN accounts, adding themselves as a child family member. Depending on which parental controls are enabled, child accounts may be able to play games and, more concerningly, buy items from the PlayStation Store using linked payment methods. Users have also expressed concerns that hackers could see account information and personal details, such as their full names, through this method.

What's worse is that shutting this situation down once a child family member account has been added isn't exactly straightforward, which is almost certainly why hackers are posing as children even though I'd guess most of them probably aren't. As Sony details on its own family management help page, "child members cannot be removed from your family" – you can remove an adult family member, but a child account can't be turned into one unless they've been upgraded once eligible, based on their birth date. It's a frankly baffling restriction, and has caused problems for folks facing similar problems before this recent wave of issues.

Just take this Reddit post from three years ago documenting one user facing the exact same sort of problem: a mysterious child account making purchases with their credit card and being unable to remove them.

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