Sony CEO Howard Stringer apologized today for the PlayStation Network breach for the first time in a letter posted to the PlayStation blog
“As a company we – and I – apologize for the inconvenience and concern caused by this attack,” Stringer said on Sony’s U.S. PlayStation blog late on Thursday.
Before Thursday night, Hirai had been the highest-ranking Sony executive to address the security breach,
The incident may prove to be a significant setback for a company looking to recover after being outmaneuvered by Apple in portable music and Samsung Electronics in flat-screen TVs and which faces a tough fight in video games with Nintendo and Microsoft.
Although video game hardware and software sales have declined globally, the PlayStation Network is a key initiative for the electronics company.
Sony says it still doesn’t know who orchestrated what it’s calling a “highly sophisticated, planned” attack that exposed the records of more than 100 million of its customers two weeks ago. The company is still working to retool its servers and bring PlayStation Network and Qriocity back online. Sony said today that it is in the “final stages of internal testing” before restoring service.
Sony said over the weekend that it planned other ways of compensating customers, though no further information was included in Thursday’s update.
Stringer also said the company had launched a $1 million data theft insurance policy for its U.S. PlayStation Network and Qriocity users.
“I know this has been a frustrating time for all of you,” Stringer said. “To date, there is no confirmed evidence any credit card or personal information has been misused, and we continue to monitor the situation closely,” he said.
Sony’s revelation of a second Internet breach on Monday came just a day after it said measures had been put in place to avert another cyberattack like that which hit its PlayStation Network, leading to the theft of information on 77 million user accounts.
Insuranace
The company is looking to its insurers to help pay for its data breach, an amount that one expert estimates could exceed $2 billion, but others said insurers may balk at ponying up that kind of money.
“We have a variety of types of insurance that cover damages. Certain carriers have been put on notice,” said Sony spokesman Dan Race.
Sony has made a deal with identity-protection firm Debix to offer a service called AllClear ID Plus for free to U.S. customers registered with PlayStation Network or Qriocity prior to the attack two weeks ago, Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold wrote in a blog post.
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