10 million credit cards were exposed, so folks are still pretty spooked.
Update: This story has been edited to reflect that roughly 10 million credit cards were, in fact, exposed. It's unclear if the details were actually obtained, however.
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It's little surprise many of the 77 million users affected by the security breach of PlayStation Network continue to be skeptical of Sony's comments, despite it holding an all-hands-on-deck press conference in Japan over the weekend. The company took to the PlayStation Blog today to further address issues.
The fate of everyone's credit card information remains the thorniest issue. Sony admitted at its press conference roughly 10 million credit cards were exposed--a significant number. A Friday report filed by The New York Times also stoked the flames. The publication spoke to several security analysts, who said there was chatter on known hacker boards of a database containing the information 2.2 million PSN users--credit card details included. The hackers alleged they offered the database back to Sony, too..
"One report indicated that a group tried to sell millions of credit card numbers back to Sony," said senior director of corporate communications and social media Patrick Seybold. "To my knowledge there is no truth to this report of a list, or that Sony was offered an opportunity to purchase the list."
Eyebrows were also raised over Sony's description of stored PSN passwords. Encrypted? Not encrypted? Sony described the passwords as unencrypted, says the company, because they weren't. Rather, the passwords were accessed through a cryptographic hash function and not stored in cleartext.
Does that sound like gobbledygook? Sony provided a few links (number one, number two) with details.
"We continue to work with law enforcement and forensic experts to identify the criminals behind the attack," added Seybold. "Once again, we apologize for causing users concern over this matter."
Some aspects of PSN are expected to come back online this week, trophies and cloud saves intact.
