Horizons

PlayStation Network outage: An end in sight?

PlayStation Network outage continues, but Sony is playing down the extent of the PSN security breach.

Newscom

PSN is still down. But Sony says it is working to get the PlayStation Network back online.

By Matthew Shaer

April 30, 2011, 12:13 a.m. ET

As the PlayStation Network outage drags into its ninth day, Sony officials have taken to the PlayStation blog to assure users that the network is under repair – and that the security breaches remain (relatively) minimal.

"[W]e want to again thank you for your patience," Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold wrote today. "We know that the PlayStation Network and Qriocity outage has been frustrating for you. We know you are upset, and so we are taking steps to make our services safer and more secure than ever before. We sincerely regret any inconvenience or concern this outage has caused, and rest assured that we’re going to get the services back online as quickly as we can."

Seybold said that Sony could not rule out the possibility that credit card information had been taken, but he pointed out that hackers could not have obtained the CVC numbers from cards, because Sony never collected those numbers from users. Which is sort of good news! Still, unsurprisingly, Twitter and Facebook have been roiling today with complaints and queries from gamers frustrated with the length and extent of the outage.

There is some good news: Bloomberg reported that "spokesmen for Wells Fargo & Co., American Express Co. and MasterCard Inc. said they were monitoring cardholder accounts and hadn't seen unauthorized activity relating to Sony."

Meanwhile – hat tip to the team at USA Today – the Rothken law firm has filed suit in a California court, alleging that Sony managed exposed swaths of valuable user info.

"We brought this lawsuit on behalf of consumers to learn the full extent of Sony PlayStation Network data security practices and the data loss," Rothken representatives wrote in a statement this week, "and to seek a remedy for consumers. We are hopeful that Sony will take this opportunity to learn from the network vulnerabilities, provide a remedy to consumers who entrusted their sensitive data to Sony, and lead the way in data security best practices going forward."

See? The lawsuit is being pressed for completely altruistic reasons.

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