During Spafford's testimony yesterday to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee onCommerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, he implied that Sony had been using outdated software on its servers. Worse, he also states that he believes the company had been warned."Presumably, [Sony is] large enough that they could have afforded to spend an appropriate amount on security and privacy protections of their data; I have no information about what protections they had in place, although some news reports indicate that Sony was running software that was badly out of date, and had been warned," Spafford testified.This all leads back to the assumption that Sony was unprepared, both in the effectiveness of their security system and their ability to respond to such a breach. While this sounds fairly damning, and many news outlets have covered Spafford's statements today, it's important to note that he is merely citing other sources, not his own personal dealings with the Sony servers.
Greed is one of the seven deadly sins and will always result in negative consequences eventually. Never fails.
Way to go Sony - This is how you watch out for our safety and security? By possibly using outdated software. Might I suggest cnet.com? They have "free" software downloads :tomato: JPConway
I'm not sure those claims have been verified. I suppose we'll see soon enough. This is the latest from the Blog relative to the hack. It is disturbing if true given the resources a company like Sony has. This has to be costing them a lot of money. Hopefully we'll have new servers and better security and when PSN comes back up it'll stay up. A Letter from Howard Stringer – PlayStation Blog ___ 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
I read that it is costing Sony somewhere in the ballpark of 2 Billion dollars? NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) - Sony is looking to its insurers to help pay for its massive data breach, an amount that one expert estimates could exceed $2 billion, but others said insurers may balk at ponying up that kind of money. Why do I see prices going up if/when the PSN comes back? JPConway
As consumers we want everything, as a business Sony wants a healthy bottom line, we as consumers applaud when they give us what we want, without really knowing the overall cost. We want cheap clothes, we get them we are happy, until we find out they are made by kids in terrible working conditions. Same here we all wanted a free to play network including all the goodies we do have, vidzone, home, on demand tv, without really understanding that Sony will still want a healthy bottom line. Dont get me wrong im as peed off as the rest of you, but are we really that blind and the fact that we have had quite a few years of what we wanted. Yeah Sony are to blame for giving us what we wanted and wanting a healthy bottom line but so is every business out there .
I read the article and while it's believable that Sony may have been running an old OS, I find it incredible that they weren't running any firewall whatsoever. My personal info was stolen (just like everyone else's), and a Credit Card (maybe). I've been through the 3 stages of grief now, and so i can do a couple of things: I can remain pissed at Sony and the hackers or I can decide to move on. I'm moving on. I will not ever forgive the people who did this though and really the bottom line is that it wasn't Sony who did this to all of us. It was some hateful people who always want something for nothing. They think that if its out there then they should have it...free. You know with anarchy nothing gets built, nothing is made...soooo I hope those hackers enjoying living on a farm without running water or electricity, because thats where this kinda crap leads. <insert smiley>
Well said Gary. I agree with what you have said here and have tried hard to stay away from getting into Sony bashing, placing blame or even expressing my real thoughts about all of this (without success on a few occasions lol). They have no doubt provided a service that millions have enjoyed for a long time now. I know that this attack is a criminal act and hope that there will be serious consequences for the perpetrators. Obviously, I hate that this happened to Sony and all of us as much as the next person, but I do hope it serves as a real eye-opener to them about how the customer is just as, if not more, important than money itself. The decline in customer satisfaction and trust on a whole range of issues (especially Home-related) has been well documented on their own general and support forums and other places for a long time now and it seems as though they choose to remain oblivious to much of it and just keep their sights set on pushing new content and making more money. In a lot of ways, I feel that has created frustration, distrust and real anger amongst their own customers and support base. Now, when we hear and see real evidence that they have indeed been neglecting their own customers, and might have even known that they were taking risks in doing so, the customer/public perception gets even worse. Yes, of course bottom line is important for any company, but there are also inherent responsiblities to your customers that come with that. Consumers are the ones that make it all happen for Sony and I just hope that they realize this more as they go through this inevitable re-building process. PEACE
i get annoyed at Sony when they are blatently price gouging on items I know were cheap to make. Like Gold items in Home. I do a little 3d art. I make 3d items. Gold items are EASIER to make than non-gold items. You just click a button. But Home charges you double just because its gold. Add to that, most of the gold gifts weren't new. they didn't make them. they just grabbed old items from the store and slapped on gold "paint". My rule of thumb is that virtual items should not make gas prices look cheap. ;D
thanks Hopper I think we forget or turn a blind eye when its going our way, but when it hits the fan we all wanna moan, no one remembers neglected customers we are deluded if we think otherwise, good example of that is if you have been in the central plaza recently you would of seen or got rewards from two companies one allegedly is a serial offender and one not more than 3 months ago was accused of neglecting its customer base by not recalling products that could hurt injure or even kill allegedly. both companies have been accused of same type of offences .But we are happy to accept them in our lives and take rewards off them now, probably didnt even enter our heads about they past
