Sony just can’t catch a break, their Playstation Network is still down, they are in the middle of the PR storm that has called in question there ability to store users credit cards and personal details for their Playstation Network.
Well its just got a whole lot worse, they have just announced another intrusion, this time it relates to Sony Online Entertainment, with hackers stealing personal data from approximately 24.6 million SOE accounts, as well as some of the data from an outdated database from 2007.
This database includes approximately "12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes), and about 10,700 direct debit records of certain customers in Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Spain."
The personal data from the SOE accounts includes name, address, e-mail address, birth date, gender, phone number, login name and hashed password. The data from the 10,700 debit card records that may have been stolen by hackers includes bank account number, customer name, account name and customer address.
While its investigating this newly discovered attacks, SOE has shut down all servers related to SOE services. Sony has apologised to its customers for any inconvenience and promised to send emails to all costumers whose data may have been stolen.
The company will also compensate customers one day for each day its service has been down, and grant them 30 days of additional time on their subscriptions.
The only good piece of news is that the data base was an out of date by 4 years, 4,300 of the cards are allegedly from Japan, while the remainder are from Europe.
Despite Sony's repeated claims that the PSN servers and SOE servers are not part of the same network, the theft has been tied directly to the recent PlayStation Network and Qriocity attacks, which saw customer information compromised on either April 16 or 17.
So can you ever trust Sony again with your personal information? Will you making purchases on Sony’s services using pre-paid cards and not storing your details for fear that you become a victim of credit card fraud or identity theft.