PlayStation Network - Press Conference

It's now been over a week since the PlayStation Network was taken offline, due to an external intrusion. During this period Sony have only offered a couple of updates via their official blog and twitter account, with no official statement or press event coming from their executive team. This lack of communication has resulted in extreme user frustration.

Today, Sony finally decided to offer a more detailed response to the public, with a formal press event from their headquarters in Japan. During the event Kaz Hirai (Sony Computer Entertainment CEO) provided new details on how and when they will begin restoring the PlayStation Network. He also announced plans to enhance security across the network and a new customer appreciation program to thank all users for their patience during this downtime.

As expected the PlayStation Network will be returned as part of a phased approach. The initial phase is set to be completed by the end of this week and will include, but is not limited to, the following:

• Online game-play across the PlayStation 3 and PSP platforms.
• Access to content that requires online verification.
• Access to Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity.
• Access to account management and password reset.
• Access to download un-expired Movie Rentals.
• PlayStation Home.
• Friends List.
• Chat Functionality.

Sony have also taken the opportunity to physically relocate the primary PlaySation Network data centre. This move was set to happen later this year, but has been accelerated to further enhance the security of the network. The following additional enhancements are set to be deployed over the coming weeks:

• Automated software monitoring and configuration management to help defend against new attacks.
• Enhanced levels of data protection and encryption.
• Enhanced ability to detect software intrusions, unauthorized access and unusual activity patterns.
• Implementation of additional firewalls.

Finally, Sony have announced a new customer appreciation program. This program will include the following:

• Each territory will be offering selected PlayStation entertainment content for free download. Specific details of this content will be announced in each region soon.
• All existing PlayStation Network customers will be provided with 30 days free membership in the PlayStation Plus service. Current members of PlayStation Plus will receive 30 days free service.
• Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity subscribers (in countries where the service is available) will receive 30 days free service.
• Additional entertainment and service offerings will be rolled out over the coming weeks.

It's great to see Sony finally taking some ownership of this global issue and they might even be able to get additional PlayStation Plus subscribers by offering the free 30 days to all, but overall I still believe this is just another significant blow to Sony and the PlayStation brand. The full press release is available on the PlayStation blog.

PlayStation Network - Outage - Update

As previously reported, on Wednesday last week the Sony PlayStation Network suffered a worldwide outage. Over the following five days Sony remained suspiciously quite regarding the root cause, expected resolution time and overall impact.

Finally, today Sony released an official statement (shown below) and unfortunately the impact is worse than originally feared. It would appear that on 17th April 2011 the PlayStation Network was attacked by an external source and users personal data, including - name, contact details, PSN username and PSN password were stolen. Sony also believe that users credit card data may have also been exposed.

The impact of this type of data loss is very serious for Sony and it's clear that their legal and PR departments are going to be very busy over the next few weeks and months. The main issue is one of scale, as Sony have over 60 million accounts registered with the PlayStation Network worldwide and this type of data loss will infringe on many countries privacy laws, resulting in reparations. This is not even considering the damage it will do the the already heavily bruised PlayStation brand.

The full Sony press release can be seen below: 

"Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer:

We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:

1. Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;

2. Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened;

3. and Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by re-building our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.

We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable.

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them, as well.

To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements and to monitor your credit reports."

This press release has obviously provoked a huge reaction from the public and world media. As a result Sony have released a number of follow up statements to help clarify the situation. These statements can be found below and include details on what to do if you believe you have been personally impacted by this security breech:

• Initial Update
• Official Press Release
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Frequently Asked Questions 01
• Frequently Asked Questions 02

Finally Sony have stated that the PlayStation Network will stay offline indefinitely, until the security breech has been isolated and resolved.

PlayStation Network - Outage

On the evening of Wednesday 20th April 2011 the Sony PlayStation Network suffered a worldwide outage, which is still ongoing three days later. This includes access to all online PlayStation services, from purchasing, updates, access to your profile, trophy synchronisation and online gaming.

To help put this outage in perspective, Sony have approximately 60 million users registered with the PlayStation Network and we have just entered one of the busiest gaming holidays (Easter) of the year. On top of this, three major games have just been released - Portal 2, Mortal Kombat and SOCOM 4, which all include online functionality. Finally, a number of key Sony developers such as Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch and Q-Games all had exclusive content being released via the PlayStation Network over the Easter weekend (which had to be postponed). Put simply this is a disaster for the PlayStation brand, which as most people know, has already had a rocky couple of years.

So what happened? Simply put, we don't know. Even though the PlayStation Network has been down for three days (and counting), Sony have only posted three very basic updates, the final update (shown below) stated that the outage was the result of an external intrusion.

"An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. In order to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward, we turned off PlayStation Network & Qriocity services on the evening of Wednesday, April 20th. Providing quality entertainment services to our customers and partners is our utmost priority. We are doing all we can to resolve this situation quickly, and we once again thank you for your patience. We will continue to update you promptly as we have additional information to share."

With this last update from Sony people suspected that the known "hacker" group Anonymous were behind the attack, as they have previously declared their intention to attack Sony and the PlayStation Network. However, the group released the following statement (via YouTube) stating their innocence.

This leaves you wondering if a member of the Anonymous group acted alone or Sony have seen the opportunity to use the group as a scapegoat. Either way the real issue remains, the PlayStation Network remains down and Sony have provided little in the way of updates or sympathy. This is actually the part that concerns me the most, as it is common practice in the technology industry that if you do face an outage, then you ensure you provide proactive updates to your user community. For example, Sony have stated that they believe it was an "external intrusion", but what exactly does that mean? The PlayStation Network stores all users private details and credit card information, so is this data still safe? At this point, who knows...

In my opinion, Sony should be engaging the community using known tools such as Twitter to provide updates every few hours. They should also give some indication of the impact, specifically regarding any data loss, etc. With this more proactive approach I believe they could have significantly reduced the continued negative impact on their brand. Let's hope they learn!

Finally, while you wait for the PlayStation Network to recover, Microsoft are kindly offering access to Xbox Live for free over the Easter bank holiday period. So at least you can get your online gaming fix elsewhere, or you could even venture outside?