Feldon Howard Stringer, Sony Corp Chairman and CEO over America, has posted an apology letter and the first details of the Identity Theft protection package that will be provided for free to PlayStation Network customers. No word on if said protection will be made available to Sony Online Entertainment customers.
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.
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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
The details of the AllClear ID Plus identity theft package now available to PSN customers are available on the PlayStation Blog. As no Sony Online Entertainment customers in North America had their credit card information revealed, this service may not be available for SOE customers.
From Bloomberg.com:
Japan’s biggest consumer-electronics exporter will offer a $1 million insurance policy per user, covering legal expenses, identity-restoration costs and lost wages that occur after data is stolen, Sony said in a blog post. Austin, Texas-based Debix Inc. was hired to provide the monitoring service and similar programs for users in other countries are also being considered, it said.
Sony didn’t elaborate whether the program will cover identity theft that isn’t related to the mid-April breach of the PlayStation and Qriocity networks, which affected 77 million accounts. Separately, some 24.6 million users of the Sony Online Entertainment platform were also affected, the company said.
Was it a coincidence that my American Express Online account got locked last night due to too many incorrect attempts? Possibly – but since I wasn’t near a computer at the time, it is a pretty sure sign that somebody was trying stuff
I use the AMEX to pay my Sony bill.
CHANGE YOUR PASSWORDS LIKE I DID WHEN I FIRST HEARD THIS NEWS.
Oh – and I am in New Hampshire, USA. That WOULD BE North America
what about protection for Australian players there a lot if us and we are at risk so Sony will you help us or ignore and hope we go away!
Gia
Actually that’s pretty frustrating. In nearly every press release or blog about these attacks/outages, PSN is about the only thing they ever reference. There is constant talk about a “make good” program for online players – but it is ALWAYS exclusively referencing PS3 games/account holders. What about SOE players? Do we suddenly not exist now? I see countless apologies and pledges to make it right for PSN users, but very little for SOE users.
Sony has been real silent about how they plan to give peace of mind to us SOE user’s. Was not our identities stolen also? Do they really know what was taken and what wasn’t since they were so deep asleep at the wheel? It is a rational assumption they have no idea what was going on and are just in cover their rears mode. If nothing else, it would give SOE players peace of mind that our identities are important just as much as the Play Station crowd. Its also clear they are telling the complete truth. Offering identity protection to SOE community would be nothing less the a gesture of good faith to ALL sony customers.
They screwed up, abused our trust and got caught big time. I am for one tired of hearing Sony in the news whining about being a victim. Who are the real victims? Their customers. From reviewing the news it is apparent management cut costs on security and administration at our expense. How could a company the size of sony not have some 5th graders knowledge of security???? No firewalls and 5 old year versions of apache running? please…. I hope this costs them plenty so they learn their lesson. I too have had my SOE credit card have fraudulent charges in the last couple days… this can’t be a coincidence for me either… first time I have ever had that happen and frankly its very upsetting.