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:
- Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;
- Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and
- 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 92834-6790You 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
quinkill
Shit! this is bad, this is really bad! Guaranteed this is gona be big news in press tomorrow. New card and password then >:(
alisound
Aside from this major balls up, an anyone clear up just how in the hell people are commenting on the official blogs??
quinkill
good question, as nobody can actually ‘sign in’ online or on their ps3. hmmm, I got nothin’
E8_BALL_
ps eu blog i get a white page with err code. prob crashed due to an overwhelming response.
apparently any signed into it before last weeks nightmare can still comment.
PoisonedMonkey
I wondered this. Same with the official forums. I can only assume if they were logged in already and the login session is saved on their computer they can carry on…
Tuffcub
Yes, if you were logged in already you stayed logged in.
alisound
aah i see, thanks for clearing that up.
matthangzhou
On the official blogs now (I’m still logged in) there are people offering tips for security, demanding sony let them delete an account permanently, others saying they have been hacked, and more stuff like you’d expect I guess.
Daywalker
ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING SONY.
I hate you.
MegaBonez
I thank God that I got a new bank card recently and never chenged my details on my PSN profile, so the details they have are already invalid!
E8_BALL_
mine were invalid due to a new card issued, but your name & address always remain on the second page.
E8_BALL_
now iv’e chilled out a bit,
my psn pword not used for anything else.
card details weren’t left in, name/address were, but easily obtainable from phone book/electoral reg.
my concern is my name/address combined with my d.o.b. which is present on the psn.
matthangzhou
Same here, bought a VPN and thought they weren’t legit so cancelled my credit card and have been buying PSN cards for cheaper lately. Phew.
jimmy-google
I’ve had emails like this from many online shops before. Nothing is unhackable but this will give Sony a stronger case for extreme legislation against hacking/circumnavigating copy protection and the OS on consoles.
Origami Killer
just read it from a facebook feed, my response: im gonna find that hacker and kick the utter shit outta them, you have been warned
Origami Killer
too bad, they know my name, address, email, DOB, all my PSN transations, billing address and hot dang if they have got my credit card details, cool.
Padre
The worrying thing to me about this fiasco is this part of the statement;
“between April 17 and April 19, 2011”
Now I know that the only truely secure system is a stand alone system with no connections to other computers, but just what protection did Sony have in place and how the hell were the intruders allowed to gain access for 3 days without the intrusion being blocked or the system shutdown? Jesus Sony what were you using a free firewall?
If UK account holders are affected then I can see Sony being the subject of an investigation by the Information Commisioner and possibly looking at sanctions.
eye8have9you3
we don’t know they spent the whole 3 days downloading info, it could just be that Sony only realised 3 days after and are trying to make it look like they responded quicker than they did. last month Play.com found out that their users email addresses had been taken just 3 months before
lilisdad
Surely they have a team of people checking for vulnerabilities. Bit concerning knowing criminals may have pretty much all my personal details. Cheers Sony
spooferbarnabas
That really is a giant screw-up by sony then, i mean how can such a huge company not have some sort of better protection in place….maybe against hacking it’s hard but surely protecting details can be done better.
YOURMUMANDME
This is going to a monumental ripple effect….
YOURMUMANDME
*have