At this point I think it’s pretty much impossible to undersell how big of an issue the PSN outage has become. It’s left a dent on the PlayStation Network, the PlayStation 3, Sony and video games in general that won’t soon be forgotten. But, the first step to recovering from an incident like this is an apology and a plan; both of which are offered below in an open letter from Sony’s Chairman, President and CEO, Howard Stringer. While he doesn’t offer much information that we didn’t already know, it’s nice seeing a leader of the highest order come out and speak to those involved.
Dear Friends,
I know this has been a frustrating time for all of you.
Let me assure you that the resources of this company have been focused on investigating the entire nature and impact of the cyber-attack we’ve all experienced and on fixing it. We are absolutely dedicated to restoring full and safe service as soon as possible and rewarding you for your patience. We will settle for nothing less.
To date, there is no confirmed evidence any credit card or personal information has been misused, and we continue to monitor the situation closely. We are also moving ahead with plans to help protect our customers from identity theft around the world. A program for U.S. PlayStation Network and Qriocity customers that includes a $1 million identity theft insurance policy per user was launched earlier today and announcements for other regions will be coming soon.
As we have announced, we will be offering a “Welcome Back” package to our customers once our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are up and running. This will include, among other benefits, a month of free PlayStation Plus membership for all PSN customers, as well as an extension of subscriptions for PlayStation Plus and Music Unlimited customers to make up for time lost.
As a company we — and I — apologize for the inconvenience and concern caused by this attack. Under the leadership of Kazuo Hirai, we have teams working around the clock and around the world to restore your access to those services as quickly, and as safely, as possible.
I know some believe we should have notified our customers earlier than we did. It’s a fair question. As soon as we discovered the potential scope of the intrusion, we shut down the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services and hired some of the best technical experts in the field to determine what happened. I wish we could have gotten the answers we needed sooner, but forensic analysis is a complex, time-consuming process. Hackers, after all, do their best to cover their tracks, and it took some time for our experts to find those tracks and begin to identify what personal information had — or had not — been taken.
As a result of what we discovered we notified you of the breach. Our investigation is ongoing, and we are upgrading our security so that if attacks like this happen again, our defenses will be even stronger.
In the last few months, Sony has faced a terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan. But now we are facing a very man-made event – a criminal attack on us — and on you — and we are working with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies around the world to apprehend those responsible.
In the coming days, we will restore service to the networks and welcome you back to the fun. I wanted to personally reach out and let you know that we are committed to serving you to the very best of our ability, protecting your information better than ever, and getting you back to what you signed up for – all the games and great entertainment experiences that you expect from Sony.
With best regards,
Howard Stringer
Well said, Howard. Well said.
Source: US PS Blog – EU PS Blog (thanks to ‘m61726b‘ and ‘sully1311’ for the tip)
KeRaSh
I’d like to see some kind of ID theft insurance for EU PSN members…
By the way, how does this PSN+ thing work? Will I lose any content that I purchased with a PSN+ discount after the membership runs out?
DrNate86
I’m not sure if anyone knows yet. I imagine they would offer a lot of freebies that don’t expire this month as a goodwill gesture. The last thing they need right now is more bad PR saying they are trapping users on PS+ with expirable games instead of a gratis goodwill gesture.
The ID theft sounds promising as well. Announcements for other regions coming soon, along with the statement dedicating protection to world sounds like they are just finalizing deals in the different territories before they are announced. I personally am quite impressed they are paying for ID protection for all their users, I felt that was more important than free games.
KeRaSh
Indeed. The ID protection program is more important than a free month of PSN+ which I will probaly not use anyways due to me losing everything I purchase after the month ends.
hobgoblin
As provided on page 1:
http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/05/06/update-on-identity-protection-scheme/
The Lone Steven
was i the only one who read the $1million bit in a Dr evil impression?
I have a feeling that the password to the admin was AAAA.:P
It will be interesting to see what PS+ is like seeing as a majority of the people on m friends list have it.Paying for ID protection eh? this could help restore a bit of the lost trust.
rht992
the scene from space balls comes into mind when the evil masterminds code was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
YOURMUMANDME
Can Sony actually promise a million dollars per user in insurance….?
If there’s a realistic figure of say 50 million users (as opposed to the 77 figure they say) then that works out to a promise of (wait for it) $50,000,000,000,000 ….and that’s more money than the entire earth has ! :S
bunimomike
Indeed they can, fella. They’ve taken out insurance so will be paying a hefty premium as oppose to saving lots of money under the mattress. :-)
YOURMUMANDME
You imagine that mattress ? It’d be like the princess and the pea with £50 notes and fist sized diamond :D
Bilbo_bobbins
WTF has the earthquake got to do with them losing our PSN details?
Smallville2106
Well done Sony. I have not been too bothered about the PSN being down. I have been getting stuck into Fallout 3. Will be nice when it comes back on though. Hopefully when it does this can all blow over.