With the PlayStation Network now out of commission for two weeks and counting, two members of the committee, Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) and Congressman G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) asked Sony a series of questions on how this could happen, and what steps are Sony going to take in order to make it better with the millions of consumers who were victimized by these events. The PSN Blog posted a summary of Sony’s response to the subcommittee, which is eight pages long. Here’s the whole eight pages.Sony’s summary began by stating their four key principles in dealing with the attack and the aftermath:
1. Act with care and caution.
2. Provide relevant information to the public when it has been verified.
3. Take responsibility for our obligations to our customers.
4. Work with law enforcement authorities.
Sony also stated six key elements of its response, which included the following:
Sony has been the victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack.
We discovered that the intruders had planted a file on one of our Sony Online Entertainment servers named “Anonymous” with the words “We are Legion.”
By April 25, forensic teams were able to confirm the scope of the personal data they believed had been taken, and could not rule out whether credit card information had been accessed. On April 26, we notified customers of those facts.
As of today, the major credit card companies have not reported any fraudulent transactions that they believe are the direct result of this cyber attack.
Protecting individuals’ personal data is the highest priority and ensuring that the Internet can be made secure for commerce is also essential. Worldwide, countries and businesses will have to come together to ensure the safety of commerce over the Internet and find ways to combat cybercrime and cyber terrorism.
We are taking a number of steps to prevent future breaches, including enhanced levels of data protection and encryption; enhanced ability to detect software intrusions, unauthorized access and unusual activity patterns; additional firewalls; establishment of a new data center in an undisclosed location with increased security; and the naming of a new Chief Information Security Officer.
You can read Sony’s full response here.
Follow @Shockya on twitter for the latest on the PSN Outage.
By Brent Butler
