The Player

April's big hack attack has put Sony on the defensive, writes CIARA O'BRIEN

IT’S BEEN A tough few weeks for Sony. Last month the company announced that its online games network had been hacked and account details of up to 77 million customers possibly compromised. The situation wasn’t helped by what was perceived as a delay in informing customers.

The intrusion took place between April 17th and 19th. Sony discovered the problem on April 20th, and suspended service. Bringing an external firm in to investigate the breach, Sony informed consumers about the potential data leak on April 26th.

That’s when the trouble started. Disgruntled customers went from wondering when the PlayStation Network would be back up and running to asking exactly why it took Sony so long to alert them to the fact that their personal information might be in the hands of a third party.

It’s easier to say what wasn’t swiped in the attack. Names, addresses, dates of birth, e-mails, answers to common security questions . . . all are thought to have been compromised. Credit card details don’t appear to have been taken (they were encrypted) but, as one expert pointed out, credit cards are the easiest information to change. It’s far more difficult to change personal details, such as your name, and answers to common security questions, such as your mother’s maiden name. Armed with such information, who knows what malicious users could do?

It has been a PR nightmare for Sony, and it’s not over yet. At the time of writing, there’s still no indication of when PSN will be back up and running. Sony promised to have limited services restored by the first week in May, but rumours say it will be several weeks before PSN is available in any form. That means no online play, no downloading new games, and no access to PSN content.

And despite promises of freebies, bonus content and memberships, additional functions for PSN and strengthened security, Sony can’t ignore the growing murmurs of discontent among its customers, many of whom are probably wondering if a repeat of the breach is likely.

The truth is that giving your details to anyone, on or offline, is a risk. This time it was Sony, but the company isn’t the only one to have been hit by data breaches of this kind – although this particular incident is theft on a massive scale.

Consumers may think twice before handing over such information to a company again.

theplayer@irishtimes.com