{"id":3493,"date":"2011-05-01T16:35:38","date_gmt":"2011-05-01T20:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geekworldordersite.com\/blog\/?p=3493"},"modified":"2011-05-01T16:35:38","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T20:35:38","slug":"sony-discusses-plans-for-playstation-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.geekworldordersite.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/sony-discusses-plans-for-playstation-network\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony Discusses Plans For PlayStation Network"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PSN<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that it is both a holiday and a Sunday in Japan, three Sony executives held a press conference today to discuss the PlayStation Network outage. Kazuo Hirai, President of Sony Computer Entertainment, Shinji Hasejima, Senior Vice President, Sony Corporation, and Shiro Kambe, Senior Vice President, Sony Corporation were all onstage in Tokyo today to detail the PlayStation Network outage in detail, and to talk about the plans for restoration of the service, and what they are going to do in terms of compensation.<\/p>\n

First, Kaz Hirai spoke from a prepared statement, saying “We would like to extend our apologies who we invconvenienced and worried because we potentially compromised their data. We offer our sincerest apologies.”\u00a0In fact, the entire mood of the event was very somber and reserved, will all three men looking extremely serious. Not the normal atmosphere for a Sony press conference around the PS3.<\/a><\/p>\n

Next, they detailed most of the history that we already know: On April 20, Sony Japan was alerted to unusual activity in their some of their servers, which are housed in an AT&T\u00a0service center in San Diego, California. That activity had taken place from April 17 through April 19th, and when they were informed on the 20th, they turned off the servers and immediately launched a full investigation and engaged a US\u00a0security firm to mirror the servers and begin their own investigation. They quickly determined that this was a highly sophisticated attack by a skilled individual.<\/p>\n

On April 24, they also engaged a security firm who analyzed a large amount of data, and on April 26 they posted all of this information on the PlayStation blog. They reiterated that the three or four digit security codes were not compromised, and that no confirmed cases of damage caused by the lost data have been reported. Staying on top of this remains their top priority. They have since asked the FBI\u00a0to conduct an investigation as well, and they will share any information from that as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Shinji-san addressed the matter in which the hacker gained access to the servers, most of which was described in this image that I’m calling “The Language Barrier.” Apparently the individual created a tool inside the server firewalls, which gave them access to the servers and the information. They pointed out that while there are up to 78 million accounts on the PlayStation Network and Qriocity, but there are only 10 million users with credit card accounts that were possibly affected by this. Besides credit cards, the networks also take PSN\u00a0Cards and electronic payments or e-money as payment, so some accounts were created that way.<\/p>\n

They also discussed some of their new security measures. These include:<\/p>\n