PlayStation Network to get two-step verification, says Sony

Sony is planning a pretty significant security upgrade for the PlayStation Network, which should make it much more difficult for villainous hackers to steal your precious PSN account.

According to Polygon, the most recent system update for the PlayStation 4 hinted that two-step verification was coming to PSN accounts, and Sony reps have confirmed it to the outlet.

What is a two-step verification, you ask? It's a method that even more publishers and developers are adding to their online services. Companies like Blizzard and Valve have been offering two-step verification for quite a while.

Implementations vary, but the general gist of it is that you need an extra piece of info to log in besides your username and password. That extra info could be a text message sent to your phone, a code sent to your email, or sequence of digits provided by an app or a code generator.

That way, even if bad people get your username and password, they still won't be able to access your account without also having physical access to your phone, for instance - as the two-step code changes with every login attempt.

There's no word on when PSN will get two-step verification. Microsoft added it to Xbox Live two years ago, and Battle.net and Steam have had it for ages.