PlayStation Network Remains Down; Where Are We At?

Sony’s PlayStation Network has now been down for nearly two weeks, and it’s been well over a week since we all discovered that customer information was stolen en masse. At the time of this post, PSN is still not up, even though Sony has been “working around the clock” to make it happen. So where are we at with all of this? It’s been a busy time for Sony, that’s for sure, and a dull one for PlayStation gamers.

In a story published by the Associated Press the other day, it became known that a staggering 25,000,000 more online accounts were stolen – all unrelated to the PlayStation Network. As you may be aware, Sony operates many different online operations, including a couple of MMOs. It doesn’t seem certain where all of these additional accounts were taken from exactly, but all were indeed Sony Online Entertainment related.

One thing that’s clear from this debacle is that Sony needs to make it up to its customers, and I’m not just talking about offering them credit card anti-fraud services. I’m not the only one who thought that, as Sony itself came out with details of a “Welcome Back” package earlier this week. As described at Ars Technica, the package will include: A) A free download, which will differ based on your territory; B) A free 30 day trial of PlayStation Plus (which we hope won’t require a credit card to take advantage of); and C) A free 30 day trial of Music Unlimited – ahem, to countries where the service is available.

This “Welcome Back” package, of course, is lackluster. A free game, of which we’re uncertain the title, and free online services for a month is, to be honest, no big deal for Sony to pull off. After all, it’s likely to own the game it’ll give out for free, and of course handles all things Plus. Even some free credit would be better than this; at least consumers would be able to feel like they were actually given something they could use.

In other related news, at a House hearing that Sony chose not to attend (due to being busy with the current issues), Rep. Mary Bono Mack laid no mercy on the Japanese giant, stating that because of this, everyone will be wary in entering their credit card details going forward. While this has always been true, I do think Sony helped bring to light the absolute importance of keeping your data safe online.

One line I particularly agree with: “Why weren’t Sony’s customers notified sooner of the cyberattack? I fundamentally believe that all consumers have a right to know when their personal information has been compromised, and Sony – as well as all other companies—have an overriding responsibility to alert them… immediately.“

Amen.

After those comments were made, Sony replied on its official PlayStation Blog, and explained itself. According to the company, it couldn’t come forth with details until it was absolutely certain that customer data had been accessed. To an extent, I can agree with this reasoning, but I do think customers deserve to know in advance of the final answer, given their data was stored on the affected servers.

It also stated that in its analysis, it found a file called Anonymous on one of the servers, that read, “We are Legion.” Whether or not this file was left from the original Anonymous attack, or is actually fresh, remains to be seen. If this entire situation does happen to be Anonymous’ doing, many people are going to be upset – as if they didn’t have reason to be already.