Lots more news on the Sony hacker attack front, so lets take this one bit at a time.
The biggest major piece of news is the fact that Sony has announced that they will be giving a free, one-year membership for the ID Protection Service “AllClear” by the company Debix for all of its American PlayStation Network and Qriocity account holders! That is quite something when you really think about it. But well-deserved given what could possibly happen to any one of us.
While Sony has not given details on how things will work for non-US PSN users who have also had their Credit Card info (possibly) stolen, they do state that they are also working on a similar solution for other territories. Quote: “Sony is working to make similar programs available in other countries/territories where applicable.”
The AllClear ID Protection plan will alert its members if your private data ends up on any criminal web-sites or comes up during a law-enforcement raid (many are soon to come no doubt) and will compensate you for up to $1 million if your data is stolen and used fraudulently within 12 months of sign-up. They will also give you “priority access to licensed private investigators and identity restoration specialists”. Sounds like a good deal.
PlayStation Network/Qriocity account holders in the USA will be getting an email soon with details and a promotional code for the Debix ID Protection service, although you must sign up before June 18th, 2011.
In other news, Sony has announced that they are ever-closer to having the “rebuilt” PSN completed, stating that they have finished work on a new data center, and that their “global network and security teams” are now busy testing it internally. No announcement on when the PSN will be back up, but they are labeling this as a major milestone so the date is drawing closer. Although a limited number of PSN/Qriocity services will start appearing back online next week.
Last and least, Sony president Sir Howard Stringer has posted an open-letter of a formal apology on the official PlayStation Blog. Here it is in full.
“Dear Friends,
I know this has been a frustrating time for all of you.
Let me assure you that the resources of this company have been focused on investigating the entire nature and impact of the cyber-attack we’ve all experienced and on fixing it. We are absolutely dedicated to restoring full and safe service as soon as possible and rewarding you for your patience. We will settle for nothing less.
To date, there is no confirmed evidence any credit card or personal information has been misused, and we continue to monitor the situation closely. We are also moving ahead with plans to help protect our customers from identity theft around the world. A program for U.S. PlayStation Network and Qriocity customers that includes a $1 million identity theft insurance policy per user was launched earlier today and announcements for other regions will be coming soon.
As we have announced, we will be offering a “Welcome Back” package to our customers once our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are up and running. This will include, among other benefits, a month of free PlayStation Plus membership for all PSN customers, as well as an extension of subscriptions for PlayStation Plus and Music Unlimited customers to make up for time lost.
As a company we — and I — apologize for the inconvenience and concern caused by this attack. Under the leadership of Kazuo Hirai, we have teams working around the clock and around the world to restore your access to those services as quickly, and as safely, as possible.
I know some believe we should have notified our customers earlier than we did. It’s a fair question. As soon as we discovered the potential scope of the intrusion, we shut down the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services and hired some of the best technical experts in the field to determine what happened. I wish we could have gotten the answers we needed sooner, but forensic analysis is a complex, time-consuming process. Hackers, after all, do their best to cover their tracks, and it took some time for our experts to find those tracks and begin to identify what personal information had — or had not — been taken.
As a result of what we discovered we notified you of the breach. Our investigation is ongoing, and we are upgrading our security so that if attacks like this happen again, our defenses will be even stronger.
In the last few months, Sony has faced a terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan. But now we are facing a very man-made event – a criminal attack on us — and on you — and we are working with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies around the world to apprehend those responsible.
In the coming days, we will restore service to the networks and welcome you back to the fun. I wanted to personally reach out and let you know that we are committed to serving you to the very best of our ability, protecting your information better than ever, and getting you back to what you signed up for – all the games and great entertainment experiences that you expect from Sony.
With best regards,
Howard Stringer”