It's been a little over 24 hours since our last update on the PSN outage. The news that customers' personal information and credit card numbers may have been compromised has turned this gaming inconvenience into a brand name public relations disaster. The fact that it has been over two weeks since the breach and Sony has not or can not definitively say whether or not personal information was compromised speaks volumes of the attack. PlayStation.blog has been posting daily updates, but no one has come out and said whether or not our information is secure. One of the latest posts is an apology letter from Howard Stringer, the president, chairman and of CEO of Sony Corporation. In the letter Stringer states:
To date, there is no confirmed evidence any credit card or personal information has been misused, and we continue to monitor the situation closely.
That letter is from yesterday. I don't want to find out if my credit information has been misused in a monthly statement from my credit card company. Just because it hasn't been misused doesn't mean it hasn't been stolen. I want Sony to be able to say, 'Your information is secure,' or 'You had better change all your passwords and cancel all your accounts related to the credit card you used with the PSN,' Sony seems to be erring on the side of credit catastrophe. According to Stringer:
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.
In an official press release, Sony stated that they would have some services available this week. As of now, it looks like they may miss their deadline. Here's hoping they don't. Sony is supposedly in the final stages of testing the new and improved PSN. They will try to win customers back with a Welcome Back program once the PSN is operational. The plan will include access to Sony's pay service, PlayStation Plus. None of this will matter if the service isn't up and running, though.
To make matters worse, gaming outlets such as Gamepro and Eurogamer have reported rumblings that yet another hacking attack in imminent. This is only a rumor. I understand that security breaches happen all of the time, but multiple breaches is a short time span may cause irreparable damage to the corporation's image. If the new PSN is immediately incapacitated, as one veteran gaming editor put it, "Things will go from ugly to apocalyptic."
To see the entire letter from Sony president, chairman, and CEO Howard Stringer, you can click here.
To see details on the identity theft insurance policy you can click here.
We'll keep you updated as we receive more information.
Update: I wouldn't expect the system to be up this weekend. Sony put out a new blog post tonight stating they'll miss the "within one week" timeframe due to testing.
Source: Blog.us.playstation.com