Sony restores PlayStation network after hacking incidents

Sony restores PlayStation network after hacking incidents

2011-06-03 06:07:53 GMT+7 (ICT)

TOKYO (BNO NEWS) -- Sony Corporation on Thursday announced that Sony Network Entertainment International fully restored all PlayStation Network (PSN) services in America, Europe/PAL territories and Asia, excluding Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea.

In addition, Sony will offer a "Welcome Back" package program offered to all registered PlayStation Network and Qriocity account services. No date was given for the restoration of the services in Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea.

On April 18, personal information on 77 million account holders were stolen from its PSN and Qriocity media streaming service databases. In May, Sony announced that an additional 25 million accounts were hacked bringing the total to over 100 million.

An investigation was launched into the illegal intrusions into SOE systems which revealed that hackers stole SOE customer information on April 16 and 17, including names, addresses, emails, birth dates, phone numbers, genders, and other information.

The intrusions were discovered by engineers and security consultants reviewing SOE systems. Sony shut down all servers related to SOE services while continuing to review and upgrade all of its online security systems in the face of these unprecedented cyber-attacks which cost an estimated $170 million in damages.

Sony said the info did not include credit card security codes, but did include around 10,700 direct debit records of certain customers in Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Spain, as well as bank account numbers, customer names, account, names, and customer address.

In addition, the San Diego-based company apologized to its customers for the inconvenience caused but it was strongly criticized by PSN users, security analysts and others after it took almost a week to shut down online services after the data breach.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-06-03