Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has been fined £250,000 for 2011's PlayStation Network breach by the UK Information Commissioners Office.
ICO is an independent authority tasked with looking after the information rights of the public. David Smith, deputy commisioner and director of Data Protection at ICO said that Sony "let everybody down", and that it was "the most serious breach we have had reported to us." ICO's report "found that the attack could have been prevented if the software had been up-to-date, while technical developments also meant passwords were not secure."
The PSN was hacked occurred between 17-19 April, with Sony forced to shut down the service on April 20. The outage lasted for 24 days in total, with personal information being taken from the 77 million accounts.
Speaking with MCV (the trade magazine for the UK games trade), Sony said that it "strongly disagrees" with the verdict and plans to appeal. SCEE rightly points out that, despite technical weaknesses, Sony was itself the victim of an attack. It has also been quick to point out that “there is no evidence that encrypted payment card details were accessed,” and that “personal data is unlikely to have been used for fraudulent purposes.”
Sony went on to say:
"Criminal attacks on electronic networks are a real and growing aspect of 21st century life and Sony continually works to strengthen our systems, building in multiple layers of defence and working to make our networks safe, secure and resilient.
"The reliability of our network services and the security of our consumers’ information are of the utmost importance to us, and we are appreciative that our network services are used by even more people around the world today than at the time of the criminal attack."
Is the fine excessively harsh or is it right that Sony has been punished in this way? Share your views in the comments below.
Daniel is IGN's UK Staff Writer. You can be part of the world's worst cult by following him on IGN and Twitter.
Source : ign[dot]com
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