Sony Ericsson Canada Store Hack: 2,000 Names, Emails, Passwords Compromised

TOKYO -- Sony has suffered another online security breach, this time for 2,000 customers of its Sony Ericsson joint venture in Canada, the latest in a series of hacker attacks against the electronics and entertainment company.

Sony Corp. spokesman Atsuo Omagari said Wednesday that names, e-mail and encrypted passwords may have been stolen from the Sony Ericsson Canada website, but no credit card information was taken.

There have been no reports of damage from the security breach, discovered Tuesday, and the server has been shut down, he said. An investigation was under way, and other details were not immediately available.

Sony Ericsson is a mobile phone maker that is a joint venture between L.M. Ericsson of Sweden and Sony.

More than 100 million online accounts are affected in a suspected hacking of Sony's PlayStation Network gaming service and other online services that began last month, tarnishing the brand behind the Walkman portable music player and Vaio personal computer.

On Tuesday, Sony said it found a security breach affecting 8,500 user accounts in a music entertainment website in Greece, involving names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Tokyo-based Sony has been battling production delays and sales losses after supplier factories were damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan.

On Monday, it lowered its earnings projection for the fiscal year ended March to a 260 billion yen ($3.2 billion) loss, its third straight year of red ink, largely because of a charge it must take related to damages from the March disaster. It had initially expected to return to profit.

Sony is expecting costs related to its online security woes of 14 billion yen ($173 million), covering customer support, freebie packages, legal costs, lower sales and measures to beef up security.

Sony's TV business is likely to have stayed in the red for the seventh year straight for the fiscal year ended March. Sony reports earnings Thursday. Sony fell behind rivals in TVs when consumers began switching to flat-panel televisions.

Sony stock lost nearly 2 percent in morning trading on the Tokyo stock market to 2,227 yen ($27).

Comments

[Mark Helfgott]

01:49 AM on 05/26/2011

This is a form or terrorism.

[maxben]

07:18 AM on 05/26/2011

No, it is not.
But whatever, go ahead and use hyperbole.

[onlyahumanshell]

03:09 PM on 05/26/2011

Why is it a form of terrorism? Because a corporation is being victimized for nor protecting the personal sensitive information of its users, or because a corporation did not protect the personal sensitive information of its users?

[Steve Hartman]

10:35 PM on 05/25/2011

I don't own any Sony products, but I find this a sad commentary anyway. The corporation may lose the billions in revenue; but it's the common man and woman who loses the job to support their families that suffer in the end. Man's inhumanity to man in the 21st century.

[Max Shaw]

04:01 PM on 05/25/2011

These hackers must have stock in Microsoft.

[maxben]

07:19 AM on 05/26/2011

Somehow unlikely because Sony is not really a competitor to Microsoft in general and Nintendo makes more money when it comes to game systems.

[frank day]

03:40 PM on 05/25/2011

Sony is a joke.

[onlyahumanshell]

04:05 PM on 05/25/2011

Sony rhymes with phony which rhymes with baloney, which rhymes with, as the Rock would say, "Gabrony." I'm not sure what I'm trying to mean, but I say it is relevant to the name Sony. =-D

[7583384]

02:31 PM on 05/25/2011

Sony's just not having a good year so far. Sony, don't worry we all have had those days.

[abuckley23]

01:26 PM on 05/25/2011

Wait, what does that mean if I have a sony ericsson phone?? Does this mean it's been implanted with a virus that'll turn it into a minature robot hell-bent on world domination? Because that would be kinda fun.

[cassie reinara]

12:46 PM on 05/25/2011

Sony is toast! I've completely lost faith in this company.

[onlyahumanshell]

12:11 PM on 05/25/2011

Oh yeah, but Sony is a corporations and corporations care about their customers' privacy, and corporations know what's best for everyone just because they are corporations, right?? Am I right?

[George Faris]

11:49 AM on 05/25/2011

Sony brought a knife to a gun fight - and they are getting riddled with serious wounds.

[hungrypilot]

09:53 AM on 05/25/2011

This is the end....my only friend, the end....

[jsarets]

09:18 AM on 05/25/2011

The moral of the story: don't try to prevent your customers from using the devices they own however they see fit. The copyright license on your software does not extend to the hardware with which it is bundled, so don't pretend it does. People don't like that, and you risk becoming a target. You don't want to become a target, because your security is not likely to stand up to intense scrutiny.

I'm not condoning the acts of whoever violated the privacy and security of millions of PSN users. That was not the principled action of someone defending the rights of computer owners. That was someone taking advantage of a concurrent act of protest to harm millions of innocent people. But companies which trample the rights of their customers are bound to attract some retaliation.

[Sherylynne Klein]

05:59 PM on 05/25/2011

"...not condoning the acts..." You sound more like the perpetrator.

[LittleSanityLeft]

09:15 AM on 05/25/2011

Sony did it to themselves by thumbing their noses at the hacker community and attacking the little guy to teach him a lesson. How's that working out for you Sony? Hackers costing you millions of dollars a day?

Sony forgot the first rule when starting a war; know your enemy and what they're capable of.

[jsarets]

09:22 AM on 05/25/2011

This is kind of the Internet equivalent of the old newspaper adage: "don't pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel".

[bsgraves1]

08:38 AM on 05/25/2011

Sony needs to get it together... they're doomed if they don't. This has happened too many times in little time. I feel bad for their customers and employees.