Sony has confirmed that its Playstation Network and Qriocity services have suffered an extensive security breach, with the personal data of up to 77 million customers potentially compromised.
It’s possible that names, addresses and credit card details may all have been stolen in the hack, which occurred at some point between 17 and 19 April.
Sony claimed that it learned of the breach on the 19th and shut down its online network straight away.
In an announcement, Sony made clear that while it was aware of the security breach, it only discovered “the scope of the breach” on 26 April.
Information that users enter for their online accounts, including names, addresses, birth dates, email address, logins, passwords and even possibly PIN card details could potentially have been stolen. So far though, Sony has not received any reports that the data has been used.
Sony is currently asking users to be extra vigilant against possible fraud and points out that it will never contact users to ask for confidential information such as bank details.
Sony has advised that Network members who use the same login and password details on other accounts should change them, and monitor their bank accounts for any suspicious activity.
Sony has not yet said when the Network will resume service.