This news is new but it is also old as the breach occurred earlier in the month this originally happened on April the 19th but Sony has only recently discovered how it occurred recently.
Now I know one question which many of you will be wondering is, If the breach happened earlier in the month why only close the playstation network now?
Well for a couple of reasons I can think of the main being Sony played dumb and didn't think too much of it as they always seem to bring in security firms to do the leg work.
And with this being Sony you would think such a big corporation could hire trained security specialists full time but this is not to say that this breach was imminent although rumors are going around that this breach was created by non other then the well known online group anonymous which they deny but most believe it was some one or a few bunch of people that support them although anonymous does not seem displeased by this. And why would they be?
When they made a public threat to Sony online after they and a lot of there supporters were outraged by Sony being granted permission and under taking collecting peoples I.P addresses from the people who viewed Geohotz Youtube video's on hacking the PS3 and also they were granted permission by the courts to demand for the details of anyone who donated to hotz via a online and well used and known service paypal. Anonymous and there supporters argument is they have invaded and exposed peoples privacy and they make a fair point.
So you can see why Sony would assume that someone who supports them or anonymous un officially hacked the playstation network service.
Now what does this mean for playstation network users?
Well Sony has said they are not ruling out the possibility of not only that users personal information was leaked to the hackers who breached the service but also financial details as well e.g. credit, debit card information for when users pay for the online service to buy and purchase PS3 applications and games.
At first Sony just deemed this as a interruption to the service commonly a server fault but a breach is a breach regardless of who or what created it and it took Sony until Tuesday to notify playstation network users of this security breach and now many are angry and are despising Sony's actions.
And many playstation network users have flocked to Sony's official forums demanding there money back but Sony has not commented on the matter as to whether any refunds will take place or be given.
Some users of Sony's playstation products have commented saying they want to return there hardware and cancel there subscriptions to the service and Sony's reply on the matter was.When the full services are restored and the length of the outage is known,we will assess the correct course of action.
Certain analysts has described this as one of the worlds largest data theft to date and the Information Commissioner's Office has said it will be questioning Sony over the breach and many other authorities in Australia and the US will be investigating the data theft.
Now one company we all didn't expect to respond to this was non other then Microsoft but there reply in my eyes was nothing more then a gloat even though in there own words they were not making any reference to being the better company and you can read there reply here for yourself.
ââ¬ÅOf course itââ¬â¢s regretful that Sony is encountering issues at such a busy time, and Microsoft takes no joy in the problems gamers are having playing their favourite games online. That being said, we are expecting Microsoftââ¬â¢s robust online network to see an increase of traffic from those gamers who own both systems. Being able to play their games via the Xbox Live network could make all the difference for some gamers, and the Xbox Nations event will allow all of them to do just that ââ¬â whether they have a Gold subscription or not.ââ¬Â
To sum up Sony has really dropped the ball on this catastrophic event and I do believe this is one for the books and will be recorded as one of a many company screw ups in the years to come.
