Sony Online Entertainment Shut Down After 25 Million More Accounts Hacked

By Liana B. Baker

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sony Online Entertainment has temporarily shut down its online games service and its Facebook games after discovering the April break-in that led to the theft of 77 million user accounts also affected its system.

A spokesman for the online games unit said the service was taken down at 1:30 am Pacific time on Monday. The spokesman declined to say how many customers were affected and none were alerted beyond a terse message on its website.

Facebook games developed by Sony Online Entertainment including "PoxNora," "Dungeon Overlord," "Wildlife Refuge," as well as games based on the Star Wars movies, were all shut down.

Sony posted a message on Facebook saying "we had to temporarily take down SOE services during the night." A Sony spokesman said the Facebook games make money from microtransactions and the sale of virtual goods like costumes and weapons.

Facebook could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sony Online Entertainment is a division of Sony Corp, the global electronics company that operates online games such as "EverQuest" and is separate from the PlayStation video game console division.

The spokesman, who could not confirm a Nikkei report that 12,700 credit card numbers were stolen from the intrusion of Sony Online Entertainment, said it was not "a second attack" and was related to the April 17-19 break-in of the Sony PlayStation Network.

"In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately," the company said on its website.

Sony on Monday denied on its official PlayStation blog that hackers had tried to sell it a list of millions of credit card numbers.

The news comes less than a week after Sony alerted customers that a hacker broke into Sony's PlayStation video game network and stole names, addresses, passwords and possibly credit card numbers of its 77 million customers.

Sony alerted customers a week after discovering the break-in.

Sony executives apologized on Sunday and said it would gradually restart the PlayStation Network with increased security and would offer some free content to users.

(Additional reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco; Editing by Andre Grenon and Richard Chang)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions

Comments

[Grandi Millz]

12:07 PM on 05/08/2011

yo these people's comments are funny check it

[Grandi Millz]

11:59 AM on 05/08/2011

I think that the people who make x-box hacked sony since they was battle against each other

[Henry Owen Creque V]

11:49 PM on 05/04/2011

this is funny, i live in Japan and when playing black ops. i notice a increasingly large number of brand new players every day hahaahaha! the japanese are ditching their own product! haha hilarious! but thats good because now i get more people to play with YAY!!!!!!!!

[Winski]

08:22 PM on 05/04/2011

Firing from the top down should continue until the hacking stops, and Sony has paid $1 MILLION to each account holder OR they go broke from lack of funds

[leorangerie]

02:26 PM on 05/04/2011

Hey, thanks for all the help, Sony! The only way I'll buy a Sony product in the future is if Osama bin Laden personally sells it to me.

[Gavin Saunders]

10:55 AM on 05/04/2011

Greedy, greedy arogant suits.

[wildcat4life]

09:54 AM on 05/04/2011

So, I'm guessing that Sony's going to offer free credit and identity theft protection for at least a few years for all those affected, right?

[hoodie4u]

11:59 AM on 05/04/2011

yep, the same way that the companies that were affected by the recent hack to the Epsilon email servers did.

[jaredbrain]

08:44 AM on 05/04/2011

Someone over there's going hari kari...or better be.

[KarateKid]

09:13 AM on 05/04/2011

LOL. I was about to write the same thing. (It's called hara kiri, which means cut the _stomach).

[jaredbrain]

09:15 AM on 05/04/2011

when they're done can I give the knife a little twist?

[theuniversalcollective]

01:12 AM on 05/04/2011

The hackers hacked the hackers

[firelord5000]

11:39 PM on 05/03/2011

I have no faith or respect for Sony after this incident. I'm stuck with my PS3, and I am not one of those silly crybabies who is like waa PSN down, waaa threat of buying XBOX360, however come 2014 when it is between XBOX720 and PS4, I went from 0% chance for XBOX720 to 75%+.

Lets get it straight, hacking happens, but being down for 2 weeks, not letting consumers know for a week that there info was compromised, and taking over 10 days to find out full extent is simply unacceptable.

[DaMojo]

04:54 PM on 05/04/2011

Yeah, it pisses me off that when you try to log on...it's just down. No explanation. Nothing.
Since they added Netflix to the network instead of using a streaming disc, I was having trouble getting into it until I figured out you just have to use the 'back' button twice and it lets you in.
I never put my credit card info in there. I buy the cards and redeem the codes. It's so much safer. I do that with iTunes too.

[GEM-592]

09:22 PM on 05/03/2011

This is one Japanese meltdown I can easily ignore.

[Lumn8tion]

08:47 PM on 05/03/2011

If I agree to your TOS and share my private info with you the fir the live of Chr1st protect that!
It's a mutual agreement, you lose my info, I get to sue you. The end.

[David c Iskra]

08:22 PM on 05/03/2011

Awesome. Thanks Sony.

[Badruddeen]

05:41 PM on 05/03/2011

Don't leave any stone unturned to find the exact loopholes or how it happened.

[theuniversalcollective]

01:13 AM on 05/04/2011

if there is a way out there is a way in, first law of network privacy

[Steve French]

04:22 PM on 05/03/2011

Sony can suck my ball sack. I will never buy anything from you again.

[Marisa Stein]

04:45 PM on 05/03/2011

second that, I can't stand Sony!

[John Rathe]

11:06 PM on 05/03/2011

Third.