Sony Comments On PSN Outage, Your Details Possibly Leaked

Dan Lee 337 Comments

Please see below for an official statement from Sony on the situation regarding the PSN. This has been copied in whole as to not miss out any important information.

“Thank you for your patience while we work to resolve the current outage of PlayStation Network & Qriocity services. We are currently working to send a similar message to the one below via email to all of our registered account holders regarding a compromise of personal information as a result of an illegal intrusion on our systems. These malicious actions have also had an impact on your ability to enjoy the services provided by PlayStation Network and Qriocity including online gaming and online access to music, movies, sports and TV shows. We have a clear path to have PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems back online, and expect to restore some services within a week.

We’re working day and night to ensure it is done as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and feedback.

Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer:
We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:

  1. Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;
  2. Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and
  3. Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by re-building our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.

We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable.

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them, as well.

To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements and to monitor your credit reports. We are providing the following information for those who wish to consider it:

U.S. residents are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit bureaus. To order your free credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call toll-free (877) 322-8228.

We have also provided names and contact information for the three major U.S. credit bureaus below. At no charge, U.S. residents can have these credit bureaus place a “fraud alert” on your file that alerts creditors to take additional steps to verify your identity prior to granting credit in your name. This service can make it more difficult for someone to get credit in your name. Note, however, that because it tells creditors to follow certain procedures to protect you, it also may delay your ability to obtain credit while the agency verifies your identity. As soon as one credit bureau confirms your fraud alert, the others are notified to place fraud alerts on your file. Should you wish to place a fraud alert, or should you have any questions regarding your credit report, please contact any one of the agencies listed below.

Experian: 888-397-3742; www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
Equifax: 800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
TransUnion: 800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790

You may wish to visit the web site of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission at www.consumer.gov/idtheft or reach the FTC at 1-877-382-4357 or 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580 for further information about how to protect yourself from identity theft. Your state Attorney General may also have advice on preventing identity theft, and you should report instances of known or suspected identity theft to law enforcement, your State Attorney General, and the FTC. For North Carolina residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 9001 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-9001; telephone (877) 566-7226; or www.ncdoj.gov. For Maryland residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 200 St. Paul Place, 16th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202; telephone: (888) 743-0023; orwww.oag.state.md.us.

We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of this incident, and we regret any inconvenience. Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority. Please contact us at 1-800-345-7669 should you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,
Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment”

Source: US PS Blog

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337 Comments

  1. That’s sort of the reason I never keep details on anything :S They’d better give us something for this, especially if someone somewhere has everyone’s details for everything. Silly mistake Sony, if something comes of this; then Microsoft are gonna rack in the £ from peeps buying an Xbox instead :/

    • Should have bought an XBox inn the first place. No point whining now.

      • Come on, that is pathetic. Grow up.

      • I have one already, but in no way is that thing being turned on anytime soon…when I want to hear a jet engine I’ll go to an airfield.

        plus, online isn’t the only bloody thing the PS3 can do, there are great single player games.

      • Own one, and a PS3 :D

      • xbox the only unhackable device on the market, damn your right.

    • but when you first reg for your online id, name, address & email required.
      so everyone reg (60mill accounts or something), card details are not, has potentially been comprised in some way.

    • To be honest, you weren’t allowed to delete your CC details from Xbox Live which was only by phone.

      That was a story told two years ago though and I don’t own a Xbox anymore so maybe it changed.

  2. SHIT

  3. shit…..my porn browsing history…

  4. Damn. This is quite huge, some screw-up by Sony….

    Fuck.

  5. Forgive me i am being a bit dumb here but……from what i have read so far all that is mentioned is the Americans. Is Europe affected or are we supposed to assume we are included in the troubling statement !!!!!

  6. Not good, kinda feel sorry for Sony with all this mess, It’ a shame really because I respect the fact that Sony offer PSN service for free. It’s something they didn’t have to do from the start.

    Hopefully it’s not long left to wait until all is back up and running again.

  7. Aaaahahahahahahahaha.

    $ony fail. Serves you people right for trusting this company.

    • If I had your details I would make you pay for pulling such comedy at this.

    • That’s some impressive fanboyism you’ve got there. Several flame posts in one article? That’s good going.

    • lol, go away.

    • i don’t 100% trust any company. so you live an appliance free life i take it?

    • Yep, here’s your warning G1GaHURTZ: leave the flame bait at the door or I will temp-ban you. People are going to be annoyed enough without pouring oil on the fire, thanks.

      • Hit ’em hard, cb.

      • Truth hurts. $ony has always treated its customers like crap and you fall for it every time.

      • @ G1GAHURTZ
        built in hard drive, blu-ray, web-browser, free online, great exclusives, highly functional move & freindly community… we must be crazy to want a piece of that.

    • please die troll boy

      • it’s annoying, yes. No need for that though, is there?
        Let’s play nice so I don’t have to be one of those dicky banhammer types.

      • “nob free or die”

    • Pillock

    • Hey don’t, we’re all the same except the games we play can be different

  8. Oh cock! Deathpenalty or worse for those hackers I say.

  9. Should probs post the EU version of this post tbh

    • tech err code is all your going to see there im afraid.

    • It’s basically the same thing, I think. Hard to tell – the EU blog is down now…

    • It’s a cut & paste, even with the US links to their experian etc

  10. I bet that all this information about us is being flogged online on information black markets :/
    They’ll make a lot.

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