A visitor plays with a 'Playstation' in a stand of exhibition at the Gamescom 2009 in Cologne fair in this photo archive from August 22, 2009.
Credit: Reuters/Ina FAssbenderBy Tim Kelly and Liana B. BakerTOKYO AND NEW YORK | Tue 11: 43 pm EDT on April 26, 2011
Tokyo and new YORK (Reuters) - Sony Corp suffered a massive violation in its online network of video games that allows the theft of names, addresses, and possibly data of credit cards belonging to 77 million user accounts, one of the largest Internet Security never steals.
Sony said that he learned of the violation of its popular PlayStation Network on April 19, causing that shut down the network immediately. Sony not told the public about the stolen data until Tuesday, hours after they released their new tablet on Japan equipment.
A person of "illegal and unauthorized" retrieved names, addresses, e-mail addresses, dates of birth, user names, passwords, logins, security issues and more, Sony said in its United States PlayStation blog Tuesday.
A Sony spokesman said "several days of forensic investigation" after learning of the violation before the company knew consumers data had been compromised.
The news provoked fury among the users.
"If they have committed my credit information, you will never receive once more," read a message on the blog of PlayStation Network of a user with the name Korbei83.
"The fact that you have waited this long to disclose this information to its customers is deplorable." "Shame on you."
The electronics conglomerate is the latest Japanese company under fire for not disclosing bad news quickly. Tokyo Electric Power Co. was criticized for how it handles the nuclear crisis following the earthquake on March 11. Last year, Toyota Motor Corp. was closed for being less directly on problems on a massive withdrawal of vehicles.
The closure of the PlayStation Network prevented owners of Sony's purchase and download games game console, as well as play with rivals on the Internet.
Sony said it would restore some of the services of the network within a week.
Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, said that the violation may be increased data theft of identity in the registration data.
Online network was launched in the autumn of 2006 and offers games, music and movies to people with PlayStation consoles. He was 77 million subscribers as of March 20, said a spokesman for Sony, almost 90% of them in Europe or United States.
Shares of Sony fell 0.3 percent in Tokyo by 0240 GMT, with an increase of 0.8% in the benchmark Nikkei index.
MAJOR SETBACK
Rape is a major setback for the Japanese electronics manufacturer. Although the sales of video game hardware and software have decreased worldwide, the PlayStation franchise is a source of substantial gains and continues to be a product of Sony.
Sony intends to use the PlayStation games to attract consumers to buy their first Tablet PC computers. The company will begin to sell the tablets later this year to compete with iPad and aims to overtake Samsung Electronics to become no. 2 in the burgeoning market of Apple Inc..
The company also plans to launch a new portable games device, the next-generation portable, at the end of the year.
Children with accounts established by their parents would also have had their exposed data, said Sony.
Sony said that he saw no evidence credit card numbers were stolen, but they warned could not rule out the possibility of users.
"An abundance of caution, we are informing you that your number of credit card (excluding the security code) and the expiration date may have been obtained," Sony said.
Analysts said that while Sony has notified customers of the violation, yet it had not provided information on how user data that have been in danger.
"This is a violation of big data," said analyst Michael Pachter Wedbush securities, believes Sony generates $ 500 million in annual revenue from the service. "Is with Sony's biggest problem how to use the information that the hacker has obtained illegally?"
Sony said a "foreign renowned security company" hired to investigate.
The company said that the information of user account for the PlayStation Network and its users of the service of Qriocity saw committed between April 17 and April 19.
Paller said that Sony probably not paid sufficient attention to security when he was developing the software that runs your network. With the rush out new innovative products, security can sometimes take a back seat.
"They have to innovate quickly." "That is the business model," Paller said. "New software has bugs." "So exposed code with errors in it to a large number of people, which is a disaster in the making".
He suspected that hackers entered into the network to take on the PC from a system administrator, who had the rights to access sensitive information on the customers of Sony. It is likely that they did send the administrator of an email message containing a piece of malicious software that is downloaded to your PC.
Hackers have stolen personal data in the past of large companies. In 2009, Albert Gonzalez pleaded guilty to stealing tens of millions of card numbers for payment for breaking into corporate systems in companies such as 7 - Eleven Inc. and destination Co.
Sony said that their users could be placed fraud alerts in their credit card accounts through three agencies, credit card in U.S., which recommended in its statement.
The company refused to comment on whether he was working with law enforcement or other parties in their research.
Sony has reported the violation of the Federal Bureau of investigations, the New York Times reported on its Web site. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal also sent a letter to the Japanese company asking to explain why it not to PlayStation owners as soon as possible.
(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Reynolds in Tokyo and Jim finkle in Boston;) Edition of the Party of Lincoln, anshuman daga and Dean yates)
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