On Sunday, Sony announced that its Playstation Network console online service would start its restoration process later this week. Today the official Playstation blog site gave new info on the shut down of the service which was handled on April 20 after a cyber attack hit the network and lifted personal info of tens of millions of Playstation gamers.
In the blog update, Patrick Seybold, the Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Social Media for Sony"s Playstation business, tried once again to quell players fears that in addition to the personal info, the far more important credit card info had also been lifted from the Playstation Network services. Sony has said repeatedly that there is no evidence that credit card information was obtained during the cyber attack. In today"s statement, Seybold tried to stomp on a rumor that someone was trying to sell a list of all that credit card information back to Sony. Seybold wrote, "To my knowledge there is no truth to this report of a list, or that Sony was offered an opportunity to purchase the list."
Seybold also clarified that while passwords used on the Playstation Network were not technically encrypted, "they were transformed using a cryptographic hash function." He directed players to a web site where the difference between encryption and hashing is better defined. He also repeated that Sony would never ask its users for things like your credit card number, saying, "If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking."
While there is still no word on who or which group was responsible for the cyber attack Seybold wrote, "We continue to work with law enforcement and forensic experts to identify the criminals behind the attack." In the meantime he said that all Playstation users should change their password once the Playstation Network is restored and to keep an eye out on your credit card accounts to make sure it is not being used by outsiders.