IDG News Service - Sony's PlayStation Network and Qriocity online services will begin a phased resumption this week, after the company took them offline in response to a "very sophisticated" intrusion, the company said Sunday.
"We'd like to extend our apologies to the many PlayStation Network and Qriocity users who we worried," said Hirai. "We potentially compromised their customer data. We offer our sincerest apologies."
Sony took the two services offline on April 20 after an intrusion was detected on the network's servers, which live in an AT&T data center in San Diego. Sony discovered the intrusion after it was alerted to unusual network activity a day earlier, said Hirai.
Sony initially responded by asking a computer security company to investigate the intrusion. When it became apparent that customer information could have been stolen, Sony employed a second specialist company, said Hirai.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations has launched a criminal investigation into the attack, he said.
Sony's investigation is still continuing and, as such, the company still doesn't have a clear picture of what exactly was stolen and how many accounts were affected. The company believes there is a high probability that personal information was taken, including usernames for the service and associated passwords in encrypted form, names, addresses, birthdates and e-mail addresses. Sony hasn't determined how many accounts were hit, but the attack could potentially affect all 77 million accounts. Read More & Watch Video
