Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Sony is expected to submit a report today to explain its recent security breach that may have affected 400,000 Hong Kong users, says Privacy Commissioner Allan Chiang Yam-wang.
Speaking after a public function, Chiang said the hacking of Sony's PlayStation Network is serious and he is looking to see what measures the company is taking to enhance security.
The commission will decide whether any follow-up action is needed upon assessing the data from the report.
Chiang said while up to 400,000 local users are potentially affected, not everyone had their credit card data stolen.
No Hong Kong user has reported any loss or lodged a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data.
Last week, the commissioner met Katsuhiko Murase, deputy managing director of Sony Computer Entertainment Hong Kong, and said he has started a compliance check to probe into the data breach. Sony Corporation announced last week that its PlayStation Network was hacked and might have affected more than 77 million customer accounts around the globe.
The company has come under fire for making the announcement only six days after it discovered the attack.
It said its PlayStation Network services will resume in stages.
Chiang was also asked if top officials should declare their medical conditions if they suffer from any major illness. He said it depended on the conditions when the officials were appointed.
However, the commission suggested legislation be amended to make medical conditions a top secret to further protect employees.
Last month, Rita Lau Ng Wai-lan resigned as secretary for commerce and economic development after surgery for intestinal cancer. It was reported that police were asked to investigate whether any privacy leak was involved as her medical condition was first reported by the media in March.
_______________________________________________________________________
Sony PlayStation 3 Is Down, but Is It Out?
The Sony (NYSE: SNE ) PlayStation network suffered a severe outage last week. There is a lot of speculation regarding what brought down the network, but no one really knows for sure. Most people blame hacker group Anonymous for an elaborate distributed denial of service attack. Even Sony views this as a criminal act and posted a comprehensive detail on its website regarding the extent of data breach that might have occurred.
Whatever the case may be, the outage obviously does not bode well for Sony, which has recorded high sales for PlayStation, but now sees that position threatened as competition from Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT ) Xbox 360 and soon-to-be-launched successor of the Nintendo (OTC BB: NTDOY.PK) Wii threaten sales. With mobile game sales in a fever thanks to mobile apps on Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL ) iPhone and other platforms, Sony's position looks even more threatened. As an investor, what does the road ahead look like?
What a wicked game to playSales of the Sony PlayStation 3 hit the 50 million mark worldwide in the five years that it has been around. With a steady rise in sales every year since its inception, the PS3 has made its presence felt. But with a recent intrusion attack and now plateauing sales, the PlayStation platform and network are beginning to show signs of age. Meanwhile, Nintendo has announced the development of the widely successful Wii game console that should launch next year.
Furthermore, the threat is greater still with Microsoft Xbox 360. There is a looming possibility of several users losing confidence in Sony's security after the breach and moving to the Xbox, which would seriously affect long-term software and hardware sales for the company.
You get what you pay forOf course, the PlayStation Network offers free access to community gaming platforms (which might incidentally explain a lack of security investment?). Thus, the segment is a cost center for the company. Microsoft will surely use this opportunity to swoop in to snatch some portion of the market from Sony to serve popular multiplayer platform games like Electronic Arts' (Nasdaq: ERTS ) Madden NFL.
To top Sony's worries, several major PS3 games are set to be released in 2011, such as the next iteration of Activision Blizzard's (Nasdaq: ATVI ) highly anticipated Call of Duty. These games also have an Xbox variant and a massively rabid fan base. If security concerns persist, networks stay down, and gamers can't get their fix, it's only a matter of time before gamers move to Microsoft for a more reliable gaming experience.
Gaming loyaltyTo add insult to injury, the other serious concern here (that is equally scraping away at all the traditional console players) is Apple. Apple is rapidly expanding its formidable computing and mobile empire and is now in the process of hogging access to the new gaming business -- mobile and tablet gaming.
Adding the new Game Center feature on its iPhone and iPad, it aims to bring handheld gaming to its buyers. This will clearly be a big threat to the PlayStation Portable in the short term. PSP games are much costlier, and the device itself is a dedicated gaming device whereas the iPhone is already widely popular in the consumer electronics market and will provide games for a bargain. Plus, it is important to note here that EA has a large presence in Apple's App Store. Clearly, large game developers like EA see the future in the mobile industry and not in consoles. Long term, this is a serious problem for Sony.
CounterstrikeNot one to take an assault like this sitting down, Sony has some tricks up its sleeve. It is one of the recent entrants to the crowded tablet PC market. The new S1 and S2 tablets launched by Sony come with the ability to play PlayStation games.
Fool's gameWith all the competition around, Sony has a lot of hard work ahead. Plus, in the handheld gaming devices arena, there's Apple to be wary of.
The scary part is the fact that the PlayStation network outage and possible data breach caused a major stir in the market leading to a fall of 5% in Sony's shares, which is incredible considering all the other spaces that Sony competes in.
I doubt Sony will be wounded because of this in the long run. The PS3 has a strong user base, and once the network is secured again people will definitely want to keep playing on it. So even though the Sony stock might face short-term losses in stock prices, it should stay steady in the long run.
_______________________________________________________________________
Sony Execs Promising Phased PlayStation Network Restoration This Week
Sony’s senior executives formally apologized to its customers for the PlayStation Network breach and assured them they were rebuilding the network to prevent future incidents.
Sony’s senior executives formally apologized to its customers for the PlayStation Network breach and assured them they were rebuilding the network to prevent future incidents.
Three of Sony’s senior executives apologized to users after hackers penetrate the PlayStation Network and stead customers’ personal information.
Kazuo Hirai, the head of Sony’s video game and consumer electronics unit, and two other senior executives bowed deeply in apology for the PlayStation Network’s April 19 data breach at a press conference at the company’s Tokyo headquarters on April 30.
This is the first official comment from Sony executives since the entertainment giant revealed April 28 that hackers had compromised the PlayStation Network and Qriocity online music and video service.
"We apologize deeply for causing great unease and trouble to our users", Hirai said at the press conference.
The PlayStation Network service is expected to be restored some time this week and Sony has fortified its network against future attacks, Hirai said. The restoration will occur in phases across various regions.
The service was shut down to prevent additional damage and it took time for the company’s team to determine what had happened. Sony was cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement authorities regarding the attack on Sony's San Diego-based data center.
"The organisation has worked around the clock to bring these services back on line and are doing so only after we had verified increased levels of security across our networks," Hirai said.
Despite complaints from gamers, Sony did the “right” thing in disabling the PlayStation Network, Jon Heimerl, director of strategic security for Solutionary, told eWEEK. After disabling the network, they “hired someone more qualified” to investigate and fix the problem and divulged what information they believe may have been compromised.
“For a ‘crisis mode’ incident response, we could hardly have asked for better,” Heimerl said. Sony said they are rebuilding their network with better security and asked for patience as they do this, according to Heirmerl.
While personal information belonging to 77 million users had been accessed, about 10 million of those accounts had credit card numbers attached, Sony said. The credit card information had been protected using a cryptographic hash function and the security code had not been stored. While the company was warning users of the possibility, it said there was no solid evidence that they had been stolen at all.
While United Kingdom-based Guardian claimed some PSN users were reporting they had been hit by credit card fraud, there was “no truth” to reports that a hacker was offering to sell millions of credit card numbers stolen from PSN, or that Sony had been offered the opportunity to buy them back, Patrick Seybold, Sony’s senior director of corporate communications and social media, wrote on the PlayStation blog.
The bigger concern, according to Heimerl, is the fact that 73 percent of users tend to reuse passwords across work and “play” accounts. Enterprises should be concerned about the likelihood of some of the 77 million victims work in their organization that may be using the same passwords to access company Web mail or telecommuting in to the office network.
Sony has also taken its Sony Online Entertainment service offline temporarily.
"In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately," according to a maintenance note posted on the service’s Web site.
Hirai claimed Sony’s online services had been under attack from various sources for over six weeks. One of the attacks was tracked back to members of the hacktivist group Anonymous, who stole “personal information of Sony top management” and publicized information about their families to protest Sony’s lawsuit against Playstation 3 hacker George Hotz. Anonymous has denied being part of the PSN attack.
To regain consumer trust, Sony is offering a “Welcome Back” package, including complimentary downloads and 30 days of free service.
Heimerl suggested online users stop entering valid information into registration forms. Unless they are entering credit card information, there is no need to enter a valid mailing address just to create an account on an online service. Either use a spam-specific email account to sign up for a mailing list or register a product, Heimerl said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment