From Bad to Worse, Sony Confirms Another Hacker Attack
Sony hardly needs any more negative PR. This is the same company that got caught installing rootkits on computers, and more recently, released a bevy of legal hounds on notorious PlayStation modder George Hotz. But folks, what Sony needs is hardly of concern at this point. Much more pressing is the fact that hackers who broke into Sony Online Entertainment's servers may have stolen personal information for as many as 24.6 million accounts.
What exactly was compromised? Oh, just customer names, addresses, email accounts, birthdates, their gender, phone numbers, login names, and hashed passwords. You know, pretty much the very information you'd prefer not fall into the hands of bad guys. But wait, it gets worse.
Sony also said that information from an outdated database that may have been compromised included "approximately 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes), and about 10,700 direct debit records of certain customers in Austria, Germany, Netherlands, and Spain." Um, way to go Sony?
Perhaps most egregious, or at least equally so, is that Sony's systems were compromised in such a massive manner a little over two weeks ago. How's that for a slow-as-molasses response time?
On the bright side, Sony said it is granting customers 30 days of additional time on their subscriptions, in addition to compensating them one day for each day the SOE servers are down. Sony's also in the process of outlining a 'make good' plan for its PlayStation 3 MMOs (DC Universe Online and Free Realms), which the company will outline later this week.
What exactly was compromised? Oh, just customer names, addresses, email accounts, birthdates, their gender, phone numbers, login names, and hashed passwords. You know, pretty much the very information you'd prefer not fall into the hands of bad guys. But wait, it gets worse.
Sony also said that information from an outdated database that may have been compromised included "approximately 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes), and about 10,700 direct debit records of certain customers in Austria, Germany, Netherlands, and Spain." Um, way to go Sony?
Perhaps most egregious, or at least equally so, is that Sony's systems were compromised in such a massive manner a little over two weeks ago. How's that for a slow-as-molasses response time?
On the bright side, Sony said it is granting customers 30 days of additional time on their subscriptions, in addition to compensating them one day for each day the SOE servers are down. Sony's also in the process of outlining a 'make good' plan for its PlayStation 3 MMOs (DC Universe Online and Free Realms), which the company will outline later this week.
