Sony Removes Data Stolen By Hackers And Posted Online

TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony said on Saturday it had removed off the Internet the personal details of 2,500 people that had been stolen by hackers and posted on a website.

The data included names and some addresses, which were in a database created in 2001, a Sony spokeswoman said.

Sony also said it would delay the restart of its PlayStation Network despite having said last Sunday that it would begin restoring services within the week. A spokeswoman said on Saturday this would not be possible, and that no date had been fixed for the restart.

Sony Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer apologized on Friday to users of the firm's PlayStation Network and other online services, breaking his silence on the biggest Internet security break-in ever.

Stringer's comments come after he faced criticism of his leadership since Sony revealed hackers had compromised the data of more than 100 million accounts used for accessing games and music over the Internet.

The incident may prove to be a significant setback for a company looking to recover after being outmaneuvered by Apple in portable music and Samsung Electronics in flat-screen TVs and which faces a tough fight in video games with Nintendo and Microsoft.

On Friday, Sony shares ended 2.3 percent lower in a broader market down 1.5 percent, extending its total losses to about 6 percent since it revealed the breach. The Nikkei is up around 3 percent over the same period.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds, editing by Miral Fahmy)

Comments

[Charlie Fox]

11:55 PM on 05/08/2011

If you can't secure personal information don't ask customers to give it to you.

[Knowledgeseeker]

11:40 PM on 05/08/2011

people just need to be more careful when shearing personal information on your video system network.

[StephenJK]

07:49 AM on 05/08/2011

There are hackers and then there are hackerzzz.

[janetdaley]

12:14 AM on 05/08/2011

That's it.Sony breaking a promise, that's really bad for reputation and especially for all the followers and trusting clients awaiting. What a rubbish company, won't trust them ever again. Forget it. IT's a shame what you are doing, and the lousy way you have of fixing things is even worse. Hate Sony products and organization as from now and forever. That's it.http://bit.ly/mCxtbF

[Chesher]

06:23 PM on 05/07/2011

Personally, I find this whole Sony debacle really amazing - for such a large company with such stature. How in the world could a company like Sony not have first rate back-end systems. Why do they have to hire an outside consulting security firm - when those same people should be full-time employees of Sony to begin with?

Can you imagine Wells Fargo, etc being down for weeks at a time? "Sorry, you cannot draw money until some unknown date in the future."

This hack will permanently reduce Sony's standing. But, if you have ever used any of the Sony online products - you will know that the back end systems were flimsy to say the least. The organization of data, and its access points, almost inviting a hack. The recent dabacle can only be said to be malfeasance in the extreme.

[LynxAlexiaBlack]

10:03 AM on 05/09/2011

Believe me I agree with you but the sad thing is that this is the norm not the exception. I work in IT for a state govt and they outsource almost ALL of it's infrastructure and security, all in the name of saving a penny. When the people holding the purse strings ask how much is it going to cost our response is always "how much is your data worth to you". invariably though the powers that be don't get it and will spend as little as possible on the task of securing and backing up their own systems because an ROI can't be attached

[FordUSA]

04:56 PM on 05/07/2011

Hulk no like sony, hulk smash ps3

[Jacobeli Behar]

03:56 PM on 05/07/2011

i didt care when psn went down cuz i still had soe games on my pc which i pay subscriptions for.....then those went down. Im still never switching back to Xbox after ive had 2 ring of death systems met with excuses by the company for why they wont fix it. This situation reminds me of the oil spill but on the internet

[beasteben]

06:23 PM on 05/07/2011

... and no one died.

[maxben]

11:45 AM on 05/08/2011

You say that now, lets see what the effects of identity theft will have on some people.

[StephenJK]

07:29 AM on 05/08/2011

Do like I did and fix the RROD on your own. It'll only take about an hour to do and not a very high degree of difficulty if you have any experience taking things apart and putting them back together.

[vimmryan]

09:03 AM on 05/09/2011

LOL...

[WascawyWabbit]

03:28 PM on 05/07/2011

since its been down, theres been this big yellow thing in the sky that I've been basking in. i saw someone doing this thing called "jogging" the other day, its pronounced with yogging though. Must be a german thing. i might try that today.

[jsgaetano]

03:11 PM on 05/07/2011

Why was Sony storing data from as far back as 2001?

[Pucker]

03:37 PM on 05/07/2011

It is interesting, and would probably violate even the most basic privacy policy.

This is probably why that particular data was dumped on the web. The hackers are doing a public service by exposing this.

[firelord5000]

06:02 PM on 05/07/2011

Except for the fact that they just exposed innocent peoples items to rest of the world.

[StephenJK]

07:30 AM on 05/08/2011

Great public service....SMFH

[theuniversalcollective]

01:27 PM on 05/07/2011

DRM on EVERYTHING but customer personal data in plain text. LOL.

[Daburn]

06:51 PM on 05/07/2011

Poor $ony, is someone having a bawwd day? That 6% drop in your stock must stiiiing.

They say Aaron Barr stuck his tally in a beehive. If that's the cause, then I guess $ony stuck their tally in GeoHot. Now they've got that burning sensation.

[Gigity]

12:52 PM on 05/07/2011

Well its reassuring that the sites Sony did leave are as hackable as the ones they took down. Good job destroying consumer confidence, Sony.

[onlyahumanshell]

12:44 PM on 05/07/2011

Hacking, can be wrong, and it can be right depending on who is doing the hacking. If it is the U.S. Government doing the hacking, this will be viewed as right or wrong depending on the circumstances. If it is a cyber criminal doing the hacking, then this can be viewed as right or wrong also depending on the circumstances.

The fact of the matter is not right or wrong, but to take adequate security measures to try to protect yourself against any type of unwanted intrusion at all times.

This is what Sony failed to do.

Although the hacking of Sony and stealing personal information of its customers is legally wrong, something positive has come out of this. That is, we all now know that Sony did not take adequate security measures with very sensitive customer information. The hackers did all of us a favor because it highlights the extent to which companies go to get your personal sensitive information only to not encrypt it or secure it in some way.

A lot of people act like hacking is a new crime, but it really is not. Data breaches happen all the time. The significance in this breach is that a giant corporation was shown to not care about internet security, and is now paying the price.

[onlyahumanshell]

12:57 PM on 05/07/2011

What the customers need to understand about this breach is this: In order to find someone truly at fault in this matter, you have to ask yourself a few questions. Those questions are:
1) Who is more at fault?
a) Is it the person that shows me that my personal data is not secure online
b) Or is it the person/company that asks me for my personal data, tells me it is secure to get my personal data only to find out that the company is not secure after all.

So is it person (a) or (b)?

When you figure this out, you'll understand the crux of this data breach.

[vimmryan]

09:07 AM on 05/09/2011

Yeah, the person who stole my personal information is at fault... Get out of your mom's basement and get a job...

[Pucker]

12:23 PM on 05/07/2011

Sony owned the gaming market with the PS2. Then they watched as Microsoft built the best online network, and Nintendo reopened whole segments of the population to gaming again.

These security failures are probably as a result of playing catch up and the rush to match what the competition was offering (particularly on XBOX Live).

Really what it comes back to is the fact that Sony has NEVER been good at software. Sony has a long history of really poor development tools and their online services are always an after-thought....attempts at catching up rather than innovating.

[Jimmy B]

01:10 PM on 05/07/2011

And a microsoft network has never been hacked ever, just wait the breakbox network will be hacked eventually.

[wakethedead 27]

05:41 PM on 05/07/2011

It was hacked in 2008, for 2 weeks. The only difference is the length and the fact that info wasn't stolen.

[firstep]

12:16 PM on 05/07/2011

Every website places tracking cookies on your computer to invade privacy, even the ones who run news stories about how terrible it is that people are spying on the internet.

[FiftyGigs]

11:41 AM on 05/07/2011

Well, since everybody is capably blasting Sony, I figured at least once person ought to mention the obvious. Theft is wrong. Hackers are not noble.

If I break into your house and steal your Playstation, will you take the blame and apologize for your poor door lock? Any liberals interested in fighting the true adversary to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

[Basselope]

11:51 AM on 05/07/2011

If Sony hadn't filed a frivolous lawsuit against GeoHot and requested the IP addresses and information of everyone who view the files on jailbreaking a PS3, they would never have gotten hacked in the first place.

[cable1977]

11:58 AM on 05/07/2011

That's a rather unsupported assumption given that no actual hackers have taken responsibility for the breach.

[onlyahumanshell]

12:51 PM on 05/07/2011

Unless you know something that a lot don't, your statements are not logical. GeoHot was targeted by Sony for modifying a PS3 that belonged to him. Anon subsequently responded with a known operation. However, there has been a statement released by Anon regarding Sony's data breach, and Anon does not claim to take credit for this breach. This doesn't mean that a single hacker in Anon did not conduct the breach, but it means that Anon as a whole was not responsible. Secondly, there is no way to verify that an actual Anon member conducted the breach just because there is some "scribbling on the wall of a crime scene." Honestly, this crime still appears to be a Kansas City Shuffle to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_Shuffle

[OnAndOnSOH]

05:28 PM on 05/07/2011

Liberals?

The problem here is that Sony did not lock their door, and the property that was stolen did not belong to them.