Sony delayed restarting its Playstation network today after stolen data was posted to a website, prolonging the company's financial and legal nightmare.
"The website was out of date and inactive when discovered as part of the continued attacks on Sony," Sony said. The company removed the website after finding out about the postings on Thursday.
In light of this issue, Sony has indefinitely postponed reopening its PS3 and Qriocity networks, promising freebies to users whenever it finally does so.
"We're still working to confirm the security of the network infrastructure, as well as working with a variety of outside entities to confirm with them of the security of the system," the company wrote on a blog post Saturday.
The delay in service may be a safeguard to prevent further attacks at a highly-vulnerable time, but it may only just compound Sony's perceived bumbling in what has become a sprawling nightmare for the company.
Sony's troubles began when hackers raided the company's online systems from April 16 to 19 and stole personal information from 77 million users. The theft has landed Sony in hot water over its allegedly thin security systems and for not alerting people to the danger immediately after it discovered the breach.
Sony says the hacktivist group Anonymous is partly responsible for the attacks. Anonymous denied stealing credit card information, though the group targeted Sony with denials of service just prior to the theft. Sony says the DoS, which were a response to the company's legal pursuit of another hacker, distracted it from recognizing the grand theft in time.
As an attempt to soothe angry customers Sony says it will offer European users free games, plus 30 days of free online service to all 77 million account holders, once its networks are restored.
It will also provide insurance up to $1 million and credit-monitoring protections for affected U.S. customers. The peace offering may not be enough to dissuade people from defecting to Microsoft's Xbox console and platform though, as disgruntled gamers have threatened in online forums.
The cost of this massive data breach to Sony has already been enormous and the bill will only get bigger. It's expected the company will lose more than $1 billion over legal fees and lost sales; Sony has already suffered six percent losses since it revealed the grand theft in April.
The world will know on May 26 just how much this crisis has impacted Sony, as it is set to reveal an annual earnings report on that date.
No comments:
Post a Comment