A Letter From Howard Stringer
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
Over at http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/05/a-letter-from-howard-stringer/, you can find a letter from Sir Howard Stringer, the Chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation of America, regarding the PSN outage. I’m reprinting it here at HSM to help spread the announcement, as Sony has, in my opinion, really stepped up to the plate with their new identity-theft insurance policy that they’re offering to users of PSN and Qriocity.
I can’t even begin to calculate the kind of cost that this sort of program represents to Sony (on top of what have to be some truly gargantuan financial losses since late April), but it is a very welcome gesture as well as an astute business move.
HomeStation Magazine has focused on the personal, human stories of the PSN outage — as we feel that there are any number of other websites out there which can all race to report on breaking news as it happens — but I’d like to point out that, given the enormity of what Sony’s been facing recently, it’s my personal opinion that they’ve handled the situation exceptionally well.
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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
May 7th, 2011 by NorseGamer | 5 comments
NorseGamer is the product manager for LOOT Entertainment at Sony Pictures, as well as the founder and publisher of HomeStation Magazine. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and presently lives in Los Angeles. All opinions expressed in HSM are solely his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sony DADC.
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I am glad to see this memo and Norse’s sentiments in this matter match mine. Some of the comments made by those who will use any excuse to criticize Home have been so vicious, I wonder why they were in here at all. It reminds me of the time a flight is delayed at the gate due to a bomb threat on board and then some passengers wanted to hold the airline responsible.
Sony deserves our support and sympathy at a time like this. In this era of malicious intent, no company can possibly anticipate every possible attack a determined terrorist can do.
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Thanks NorseGamer for sharing your thoughts with us.
I also agree with keara.
The outage is indeed a real issue for Sony and I can only send them encouragement and sympathy in resolving the problem.
We can all understand people getting aggravated for having their patience put to the test.
But, let’s keep in mind that this is all for our best.
Let’s just “hang on”!
As I mentionned in an earlier post; any company, no matter how big it is, can be a target for web pirates and hackers.
More attacks will unfortunately be commited on more and more worlwide majors in the near future as seems to be the new trend these days…
I trust Sony to be doing what it takes to efficiently re-enforce its security infrastructure.
But this takes a lot of time and testing to put that successfully in place.
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Well now, wait a minute.
First, whoever hacked the system I have nothing but distain for.
On the other hand, if (and it is an if) Sony had insufficient protection against attacks, then some part of it may be their fault.
When the bank closes in Redemption City, they’re supposed to lock the door to the bank and the safe.
The amount and quality of security does matter.
I am in sympathy with Sony.
Hopefully Sony and others will learn something from this experience.
Anyone that hacked should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
It seems that most ppl are concerned about whether or not our credit card info. was lost or not,while that is important it’s only money.I’m much more worried that the hackers now know where i live and can sell that info. to ANYBODY.It’s certain that info. was gotten and if any1 gave their real address to sony then the hackers have it as well.Wish i woulda gave them 123 Lollipop Lane as my address but sadly i did not.As for blame it seems there’s enough for every1 involved in this mess,Sony’s shoddy security,the hackers who infiltrated the network,and ourselves for trusting others to value our info. as much as we do.We can play the blame game after we know all the facts,right now i just wanna play multi-player zombies on Call Of Duty and get back on home.
i hear ya! Bro!