PlayStation 4 consoles get stuck because of a malicious message

Hey, PlayStation 4 people. Lock the mail on your account, pronto.

A new type of malicious message would be circulating on the PlayStation Network, causing the console to crash. Recovery is possible, but it's not as easy as restarting the machine. There are steps to follow.

The word problem seems to have surfaced for the first time on Reddit. In a message titled "WARNING: Set your messages as confidential," the Huntstark1 user describes a scenario in which almost all of their team was initialized from a remote location. Rainbow six: seat match after all have received a message containing an unrecognized character.

Only one member of the team was not assigned, apparently because he keeps the confidentiality of his PSN messages.

I have not been able to personally confirm the existence of the problem, but it should be noted that it is not an isolated report. Others have reported similar issues after receiving a message with unrecognized characters. It seems that some bad NHP players use these messages to bench players in competition, giving them a competitive advantage.

Before going any further: To make your PlayStation account private, open your console and go to the Settings menu. Next, select Account Management, then Privacy Settings, and Personal Information | Messaging. On this last page, replace "Messages" with "Friends only" or "Person".

These measures will prevent anyone from sending you the problematic message. This will not fix your console if you have already been hit by the email bug.

Sony gave no indication or responded to Mashable's request for comment, but some solutions have been proposed. One suggestion is to download the PS Messages application on the smart device of your choice and remove the offending message.

In these cases, you may also need to rebuild the database of your PS4. It is a simple and easy process that consists of starting the console in safe mode and selecting the right option in a menu. Here's how to proceed, directly from Sony.

Another suggestion is to perform a factory reset on your console, although you may want to consider this as a last resort. When the option of rebuilding the database and PS Messages application keeps all data from the hard drive of your console, a factory reset clears everything.

This may not be confirmed by Sony, but the problem seems to be widespread enough – and easy enough to work around – that you probably need to take action now rather than waiting for Sony to fix the problem. This is especially true if you play online games and are often exposed to random players.