Sony to offer freebies to appease customers

Sony have had a rough month, dealing with consumer backlash, after their PlayStation Network was hacked. Kazuo Hirai, Sony’s deputy president finally spoke out offering an apology while bowing “I am deeply sorry for worrying, and inconveniencing, our users.” Many say this apology is too little, too late.

He also said that ‘only' 10 million of the PSN accounts had credit card information, even though 70 million accounts have potentially been compromised. One of the big problems is that Sony took so long to pass the information over to their customers, leaving everyone twisting in the wind, waiting for updates. This has been a total PR disaster for the electronics giant who are now also having to deal with the U.S. House of Representatives, the government of the city of Taipei and the British and Canadian privacy authorities. All of them are demanding answers, specifically as to why it took Sony almost a week to tell customers of the serious breach.

The company have said that they are going to offer their customers freebies as a bonus for the situation. They are going to prove a free identity theft protection service and ‘will consider' helping customers who have to be issued new credit cards. Sony are also going to offer free selected downloads, as well as 30 days of free Playstation Plus network access. Music Unlimited Subscribers are also going to get 30 days free service.

Unsurprisingly, Sony are saying that they are going to make changes to enhance their security, appointing a new ‘chief security information offer' for Sony Computer Entertainment. They are moving data servers from San Diego to a different location with enhanced system security. More firewalls will be added, and data encryption will be enhanced (or should that be ‘added'?).

Once the system comes back online customers will have to download a new software update that will require everyone to change their passwords.

Hirai said “We've also received attacks from the Internet group Anonymous, who in addition to taking the personal information of Sony top management, also publicized information about their families, their names, and schools, on the Internet and called for sit-in protests across the world. These kinds of sequential attacks on the company may not be limited to Sony. And in addition to our own initiatives, we will work with law enforcement and related agencies to combat illegal intrusions and the safety of a networked society.”

“Again we like to offer our deepest and sincere apologies for potentially compromising customer data as well as causing great concern and making services unavailable for an extended period of time.”

KitGuru says: Are the freebies enough to make customers happy again?

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