PSN Downtime Enters 11th Day
Here we are going into the eleventh day of the
PlayStation Network outage and we are assured by
Sony officials that the network is being repaired. Isn’t that what they’ve been doing for the past eleven days or have they just been sitting around discussing the situation and hoping for the best?
Under repair…Well, that is progress isn’t it? Maybe we will be getting a date soon as to when the repairing will be completed!
They’ve also indicated that security breaches remain (relatively) minimal – what does that really mean? How many hundreds of thousands are not included in their original estimates of those affected by security breaches? Does that mean that you, the reader, are not included in that (relatively) minimal number?
According to the CS Monitor Horizons, Sony rep, Patrick Seybold, wrote today:
“We want to again thank you for your patience. We know that the PlayStation Network and Qriocity outage has been frustrating for you. We know you are upset, and so we are taking steps to make our services safer and more sure than ever before. We sincerely regret any inconvenience or concern this outage has caused, and rest assured that we’re going to get the services back online as quickly as we can.”
Actually, we’ve heard all of this before in one form or another. There is nothing new under the sun!
According to Seybold, he claims that Sony can’t rule out the possibility that credit card info has been compromised, but indicated that it was not possible for
hackers to have taken the CVC numbers from credit cards, as those numbers were never collected. This is good news – kind of.
Still, in looking at Facebook and Twitter, they have been busy with questions and complaints from users, who are fed up with the length of time this is taking and the extent of time of this outage.
But some of the new gets better per AP as they write in Bloomberg report,
“spokesmen for Wells Fargo & Co., American Express Co. and MasterCard Inc. said they were monitoring cardholder accounts and hadn’t seen unauthorized activity relating to Sony.”
Some users have shown concern regarding compensation for this long outage – a result of a April 20th hack of the PlayStation Network. As far as we know, the exact identity of the hacker has not been discovered and investigation by Sony continues, while they concentrate on the ramp up of security. Once this is back up, users will need to change passwords for security maximization.
Some potential users say they’re thinking of selling their newly acquired PS 3′s and that’s okay but who will want to buy them, even at a discount? Good luck!
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Sony shares up after it says PlayStation network to restart
TOKYO (Reuters) - Shares of Sony rose on Monday, a day after the firm said it would resume some services on its PlayStation Network this week and offer customer incentives following the theft of personal information from 78 million user accounts.
Many PlayStation users around the world were frustrated that the first warning of one of the largest Internet security break-ins ever came a week after Sony detected a problem with the network on April 19.
Analysts said it was too early to say whether the measures the consumer electronics giant unveiled on Sunday would be enough to stop disgruntled gamers leaving the network and warned restoring faith in its security system would take time.
Sony has touted online services as a way of leveraging the synergies between its unique combination of hardware and content, including films and music as well as games.
"Damage has been done to Sony whatever the scale of the content giveaway at this point, and Sony is facing a prolonged effort to regain customer trust," said Jay Defibaugh, director of equities research at MF Global in Tokyo.
"Anything that undermines consumer willingness to divulge credit card details to Sony is a problem for the network strategy," he added.
Sony said on Sunday it would offer some free content, including 30 days of free membership to a premium service to existing users and in some regions pay credit card-renewal fees, but added compensation would only be paid if users suffered damage.
The news sparked thousands of comments on the official PlayStation fan page on Facebook, some of them from users who said they would switch to Microsoft's Xbox Live games network.
Shares in Sony were up 2 percent to 2,305 yen, after falling 4.5 percent on Thursday, ahead of a holiday on Friday. But analysts said concerns about the leak would weigh on investor sentiment.
"At minimum, having to suspend the service, fix its problems and deal with the aftermath, looks set to cost (Sony) tens of billions of yen," said analyst Nobuo Kurahashi of Mizuho Investors Securities.
"I don't think anyone knows where they will be able to absorb this loss, nor how much it will be, and that'll weigh on share prices going ahead," he added.
The incident has sparked legal action and investigations by authorities in North America and Europe, home to almost 90 percent of the users of the network, which enables gamers to download software and compete with other members.
Sony is the latest Japanese company to come under fire for how it has disclosed bad news.
Tokyo Electric Power Co was criticized for how it handled the nuclear crisis after the March 11 earthquake. Last year, Toyota Motor Corp was slammed for being less than forthright about problems over a massive vehicle recall.
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