PSN Update 06.05.11

[Disfunction]

Taken from the main blog site.

Posted on 6 May by Nick Caplin ? Head of Communications, SCEE

A Letter from Howard Stringer

Dear Friends,
I know this has been a frustrating time for all of you.
Let me assure you that the resources of this company have been focused on investigating the entire nature and impact of the cyber-attack we?ve all experienced and on fixing it. We are absolutely dedicated to restoring full and safe service as soon as possible and rewarding you for your patience. We will settle for nothing less.
To date, there is no confirmed evidence any credit card or personal information has been misused, and we continue to monitor the situation closely. We are also moving ahead with plans to help protect our customers from identity theft around the world. A program for U.S. PlayStation Network and Qriocity customers that includes a $1 million identity theft insurance policy per user was launched earlier today and announcements for other regions will be coming soon.
As we have announced, we will be offering a ?Welcome Back? package to our customers once our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are up and running. This will include, among other benefits, a month of free PlayStation Plus membership for all PSN customers, as well as an extension of subscriptions for PlayStation Plus and Music Unlimited customers to make up for time lost.
As a company we ? and I ? apologize for the inconvenience and concern caused by this attack. Under the leadership of Kazuo Hirai, we have teams working around the clock and around the world to restore your access to those services as quickly, and as safely, as possible.
I know some believe we should have notified our customers earlier than we did. It?s a fair question. As soon as we discovered the potential scope of the intrusion, we shut down the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services and hired some of the best technical experts in the field to determine what happened. I wish we could have gotten the answers we needed sooner, but forensic analysis is a complex, time-consuming process. Hackers, after all, do their best to cover their tracks, and it took some time for our experts to find those tracks and begin to identify what personal information had ? or had not ? been taken.
As a result of what we discovered we notified you of the breach. Our investigation is ongoing, and we are upgrading our security so that if attacks like this happen again, our defenses will be even stronger.
In the last few months, Sony has faced a terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan. But now we are facing a very man-made event ? a criminal attack on us ? and on you ? and we are working with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies around the world to apprehend those responsible.
In the coming days, we will restore service to the networks and welcome you back to the fun. I wanted to personally reach out and let you know that we are committed to serving you to the very best of our ability, protecting your information better than ever, and getting you back to what you signed up for ? all the games and great entertainment experiences that you expect from Sony.
With best regards,
Howard Stringer


looks like PSN will be having to give away a lot of free dlc, games ect.

[teerak2uk]

Pity that when its up and running black ops servers will still be crap though

[southbrook]

hopefully not much longer to wait..... then I presume it will be a few days of dodgy connections and server meltdowns as millions of people try and get online

[teerak2uk]

Countries: AE, AU, GB, IE, NZ


As you may know, we?ve begun the process of restoring the service through internal testing of the new system. We?re still working to confirm the security of the network infrastructure, as well as working with a variety of outside entities to confirm with them of the security of the system. Verifying the system security is vital for the process of restoration. Additional comprehensive system checks and testing are still required, and we must complete that process before bringing the systems online.
As you?ve heard us say, our utmost priorities are the security of the network and ensuring your data is safe. We won?t restore the services until we can test the system?s strength in these respects.
When we held the press conference in Japan last week, based on what we knew, we expected to have the services online within a week. We were unaware of the extent of the attack on Sony Online Entertainment servers, and we are taking this opportunity to conduct further testing of the incredibly complex system. We know many of you are wanting to play games online, chat with your friends and enjoy all of the services PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have to offer, and trust me when I say we?re doing everything we can to make it happen. We will update you with more information as soon as we have it. We apologize for the delay and inconvenience of this network outage

[thepoodlespouch]

Sounds like we could still be waiting another 3 weeks for it to be sorted??

[blizard442]

Sounds like we could still be waiting another 3 weeks for it to be sorted??

Sources from Bloomberg have said 31st of may.

[chroma]

31st of may is wildly optimistic, theyre rebuilding the network from the ground up, even seasoned veteran experts have a hard time setting up a functioning network of this scale in under three months...
Sony is has become abundantly clear has no idea about networks and don't fall into the expert veteran category!

[teerak2uk]

I know you all want to know exactly when the services will be restored. At this time, I can?t give you an exact date, as it will likely be at least a few more days. We?re terribly sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work through this process.




PSN Restoration Timeline Update