Over the last several months, Sony has been criticized for a multitude of reasons. Identification of over 100 million consumers was taken by computer hackers that breached into Sony’s weak security associated with videogames and computers. This security breach allowed identity theft and other forms of credit theft to occur.
During this time period, consumers theorized that Sony deliberately avoided revealing this information to the public in order to avoid negative publicity. Sadly, the Japanese government has now released reports confirming this is in fact true. According to these reports, Sony became aware on April 25 (US time) that a “Fairly large amount of data” was compromised in an illegal intrusion into systems. Yet during several press conferences in April and May, Sony continued to downplay the severity of the problems.
Recently, Sony confirmed the last remaining Playstation Network servers were restored. Sony also pointed out that some of the hackers allegedly responsible for the outage were apprehended. Sony has also said there will be a 12-month form of insurance available to people who may have been affected in a negative way by identify theft or stolen passwords.
But senators and other government officials in the United States have made it clear that one-year is not enough time for this problem to reveal itself. Several senators have pointed out that Sony should follow in the footsteps of Microsoft by accepting accountability for their lack of responsibility. Extending this insurance policy to three years the way Microsoft did with the Xbox 360 would show far more appreciation to consumers willing to stay with Sony during these terrible times.
If you are an owner of a Playstation 3, a PSP, or you use the Playstation Network in some way, it would probably be a good idea for you to write to Sony. You should ask Sony to extend their insurance policy to 36 months. It isn’t fair for normal consumers to suffer because Sony was not willing to publicly disclose information or maintain optimal levels of online security.