SOE Also Hacked

If you think the announcement that PSN's user data was stolen was late, you'll get utterly mad on this one. Sony just announced that they has discovered that hackers may have obtained personal customer information from SOE systems.

Sony's reputation is really damaged with the PSN announcement. And with this announcement? It's pretty much all ruined, meaning Sony's got to start over and rebuild the lost trust from a lot of PSN and SOE users.

This announcement just came out, despite the hacking was done around April 16-17.

We are today advising you that the personal information you provided us in connection with your SOE account may have been stolen in a cyber-attack. Stolen information includes, to the extent you provided it to us, the following: name, address (city, state, zip, country), email address, gender, birthdate, phone number, login name and hashed password.

Moreover, even customers outside the US are not much safer than those in the US. The older database of Sony containing 12,700 non US credit card numbers is also breached!

Customers outside the United States should be advised that we further discovered evidence that information from an outdated database from 2007 containing approximately 12,700 non-US customer credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes) and about 10,700 direct debit records listing bank account numbers of certain customers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Spain may have also been obtained. We will be notifying each of those customers promptly.

There is no evidence that our main credit card database was compromised. It is in a completely separate and secured environment.

Same with the PSN, Sony has turned off all SOE services, and started more investigation on this side of the hacking case.

1) Temporarily turned off all SOE game services;

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

3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.

The string of events recently is a great disappointment for Sony's fans altogether ( Of course, except the Welcome Back program, that was fabulous ). I'm positive that people will be really reluctant to use their credit card on Sony's PSN and SOE now, thanks to this hacking case.

Let's just wait and see Sony's next move pertaining this SOE. Seems like Sony will have a really hard time thinking this through, and to be honest, I'm curious what their next move will be! (Though I sincerely hope it's not another "OH, ANOTHER PART OF OUR DATABASE IS ALSO HACKED, SORRY")

Source:
SOE