PlayStation Network to reopen in Asia again, including Japan

By: Aseem Gaurav on May 28, 2011

Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Network will finally be back in Japan and other parts of Asia on May 28. The company has offered a “thank you and apology package” to go with it.

Earlier Japan, the PlayStation's native country, had blocked the restoration the service because of its dissatisfaction with Sony’s plans for higher security precautions and identity protection.

Except South Korea and Hong Kong, the service will resume in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. The company is still in talks with authorities in these two countries but hasn’t revealed a date.

The service returned for users in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand on May 14 and 15, but gamers in Asia had to wait long.

It has been more than five weeks since the PSN was taken offline following a cyber attack. Hackers stole data on all 77 million registered accounts including user names, e-mail addresses, login IDs and passwords.

As per the new security precautions, PlayStation users need to download a firmware update for the console. Users then have to change their password upon login.

Sony gets hacked for a second time, 25 million more at risk

By: Aseem Gaurav, May 3, 2011

Within days of Sony admitting of a huge security breach, in which a hacker allegedly stole information related to 77 million PlayStation users, the company has reported yet another hacking incident.

The security breach happened on April 18 wherein hackers accessed personal info from nearly 24.6 million Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) service – which hosts a variety of online PC games like EverQuest. Hackers stole the credit-card data for about 12,700 non-U.S. accounts and 10,700 bank-account numbers from a database of 2007.

Sony discovered the theft only on May 2 and subsequently took SOE offline.

The combined figures of both the thefts means that over 100million customer accounts have now been compromised.

Pressure is mounting on Sony to restore services and compensate players.

Sony Online Entertainment network allows users to play games played over the Internet on PCs with "EverQuest" being one of its most popular games.

Sony has drawn major flak for their inappropriate handling of the data protection incidents. The company is facing potentially severe legal and political consequences over its failure to protect customer information.

The company has apologised to customers for the breach and has said its PlayStation Network will be up-and-running as soon as possible.