Sony have finally admitted that the recent system hack might have compromised their customers credit card information. Sony are coming under attack from the public for taking so long to release information on the ‘intrusion' which happened between April the 17th and 19th.
This recent hack has caused a week long outage for the company and recent information appears to be highlighting that it could continue for another week. As many as 75 million people worldwide use this network to play online games and to download movies, TV episodes and game demos.
Sony have said they will be issuing an email to all account holders advising those who gave their credit card information to either PSN or Sony's new Qriocity music system that hackers may have gotten their credit card details and expiration date, however the security code looks to be safe.
“While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility,” Patrick Seybold, senior director of corporate communications and social media, said in a statement on Sony's official PlayStation blog.
He did admit that an authorised person (or person's' as the case might be) has received personal information including birth date and email addresses. He added that PSN members should be on the alert for sophisicated email, telephone and postal scams that could be asking for personal information.
Users should also change their passwords on services and accounts that might use the same user name or password as their PSN account. He said “We encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements and to monitor your credit reports.”
Whatever way this unfolds, Sony have a huge public issue to deal with due to this. Many people have already lost faith in the companies security system while others are furious that it has taken Sony so long to come public about something they clearly knew about a week ago.
KitGuru says: The Sony brand name has been seriously tarnished over the last week. We can see a lot of customers walking away from the online network. Could this even cause an increase in Xbox 360 sales over the next couple of months?