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
colmshan1990
My Dad just heard about this on the news, and remembered that his card was used once two years ago, and is now paranoid.
I don’t think RTE News reported it too well.
Think what’s going to happen when this hits the Daily Mail or The Sun?
I myself am quite irked by this, it’s pretty serious, and now I’m going to have to be extra vigilant with all my statements in case anything suspicious pops up. Ugh. Major fuck-up.
Sympozium
The Sun would explode, thus becoming gamers number one thing to hate? disliked what they done with the 3DS and whatever what else they do to damage the games industry (maybe a minor few but not much its mostly for idiots folowing crap Football millionares)
gideon1451
‘The Sun would explode’ makes for scary out-of-context reading.
m61726b
I wish News International would explode
Mick939
….. I love cc’s MASSIVE over reaction, this happend DAILY and very very often you aren’t told when it does. Apart from cc information everything else on the psn is very easily attainable, i mean for god sake most of you have facebook. and EVERYONE receives post. Luckily every bank/building society have teams that deal with it every day. And being a victim of identity fraud can also be fixed by experian and your bank…
colmshan1990
That’s true.
But the fact is, there is a reason we don’t post this information in direct public view. There are real cases of fraud which cannot be fixed, or are hard to prove. These cases can drag on for a long time, a person could lose everything in between.
Also, that’s not just cc’s reaction, but is going to be the reaction of the general public. Just as the PS3 was looking likely to catch up to the 360, THIS bombshell just hit. And while many people will blow this out of proportion, this IS a real problem. A problem which should never have been allowed happen.
Forget it, this generation is now well and truly lost for Sony. And possibly the NGP, Qriocity, and any other Sony networked products as well. It’s time to lick their wounds, and go back to the drawing boards. With security the top priority.
The PS3 used to be nigh-on impregnable. But it appears Sony put all their eggs in one basket, and when it broke, everything fell out.
In other words, they didn’t have a Plan B, when they should have had a Plan ZZ, if they needed it.
Sympozium
An original European version of various phone numbers and advice would be kind. haven’t saved my credit details but the address and Dob worries me..
colmshan1990
Here’s the phone number page:
http://faq.en.playstation.com/cgi-bin/scee_gb.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?locale=en_GB&p_faqid=5593
And here’s the eu blog statement, which isn’t much different from the US statement.
http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/04/26/psnqriocity-service-update/
Eternal_FF_Lover
Terri-epic-bad :(
gideon1451
Sly comments will be made at E3.
kingfox
If they do it’ll make them look like a dick
but E3 might be what sony needs to start rebuilding there rep
nemesisND1derboy
Sony…argh!
Sorry, had to be comment 250 :D
gideon1451
I’ve never seen so many comments on an article before!
colmshan1990
To any involved in the admin or somebody who knows?
What’s the TSA comment record? And have we broken it tonight?
cc_star
Seen 330+
Aquastyle
Well, we’re now up to 334 me thinks… Exciting!
StevenHibs
This just gets better and better, bloody shambles, it took almost a week to work this out, I fear for our accounts and trophies etc
Mick939
Bloody hell its clear when fear mongering has taken its toll…. this happens VERY often, and is ridiculous to see this as such a major threat, its a cock up granted, but a cock up that happens more than the companys admit. And i think sony have handled it brilliantly they haven’t fucked about left the network open just so people are happy, they haven’t commented before they actually knew what happened (thus not instilling fear unnecessarily) And to be fair they have put the debit card info in as a just in case. Does anyone know long it takes to actually search through this kind of thing, or how long it would actually take a hacker to break the encryption on the files they have taken…
m61726b
If it was encrypted or if they didn’t use a stupid key. And AES 256bit on a mid range PC can take up 14 years to hack.
I has already been said, Banks will have more sophisticated attacks every day and don’t lose data. This isn’t a cock up, it’s bad security.
GameBoss01
I still trust Sony, but not it’s customers. I am not gonna close my account or move to 360. This is still my fave console and it’s gonna stay like that.
GO SONY!
Dlaf42
Am i right in thinking that this is not just for ps3 as the update mentioned PlayStation Network/Qriocity, hence anyone with a bravia tv with net feature or a bluray play with Qriocity will have to be on the look out to if they have entered there details too. There is going to be an awful lot of fallout over this,just thought the new Xperia play phone uses could be at risk to.