Sony announced on its blog yesterday that they expect the PlayStation Network to be back up in about a week. This is good news for gamers who are eagerly awaiting the reboot. In the midst of this, Sony is also gearing up its lawyers for what may be only the first lawsuit against the company.
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Sony for the negligent security of personal data, failure to take reasonable care to protect data, and failure to notify users of the breach. The lawsuit was filed on April 27, 2011 by Kristopher Johns of Alabama. The document can be viewed at scribd.com.
According to Sony’s blog, they are working with law enforcement as well as a technology security to firm to completely investigate the matter and discover who hacked their system. Patrick Seybold, the director of corporate communications, explained that the information that was maliciously taken was stored behind a very sophisticated security system but not encrypted. Credit card information, on the other hand, was encrypted, and Sony does not believe that credit card information was taken.
The issue isn’t just a U.S. matter, though. In the United Kingdom, the Information Commissioner’s Office is looking into the breach to discover whether Sony did enough to secure the sensitive data and whether the company took measures to notify the public of the breach in a timely manner. Australian Privacy Commission Timothy Pilgrim, according to Australian newspapers, is opening an investigation into the breach as well.
According to the Ponemon Institute, the breach will cost Sony an estimated $24 billion just in lost revenue. As the company is investigating the impact of the intrusion, it is also looking at ways to appease the financial impacts the outage has had on its customers.
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