Hand it to Sony for knowing its audience.
Although the Playstation 3 has become a multimedia powerhouse — Sony dropped the nugget that its console accounts for 30 percent of all Netflix streaming — Sony’s E3 press conference was almost entirely about games. The requisite parade of exclusives came first, followed by launch details for Sony’s next-generation portable, now known as the Playstation Vita.
Sony just can’t get back on track. On Wednesday evening, the Playstation Store came back online, finally making the Playstation Network whole again after April’s devastating security breach.
But now, a group of hackers known as Lulz Security claims to have breached Sony Pictures’ website, stealing e-mails, passwords, addresses, birth dates and opt-in information for more than a million users. All of this information is now posted to the Internet.
To be clear, we’re talking about two different divisions of Sony. The hacking of Sony Pictures has no effect on the Playstation Network. Still, this is another embarrassing security breach for Sony, and a sign that the company isn’t finished fending off hackers. It’s not even the first attack since the breaches of PSN and Sony Online Entertainment in April. Other smaller attacks have included a leaked database in Japan and a phishing scam site on Sony’s Thai web domain.
On the bright side, the Playstation Network has remained relatively stable since online play resumed in mid-May. That’s the best way Sony Computer Entertainment can redeem itself, along with the “welcome back” package of free games and other benefits that’s reportedly in its final testing stages.
But as a whole, Sony needs to show its customers that it’s taking security more seriously. Obviously, the entire company is now a target, and customers are the innocent bystanders. Perhaps it’s time for CEO Howard Stringer to change his tone.
Reuters’ Alastair Sharp has published a story saying that some investors are wondering whether it’s time for a change at the top of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, which is led by Mike Lazaridis (who founded the company in 1984) and Jim Balsillie (who’s been co-CEO since 1992). Sharp’s piece follows a flurry of debate last week about the future of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s president and CEO, who’s been with the company since 1980 and has been CEO since 2000.
I’m not making any predictions about what’s going to happen at either company–except to note that lack of change is usually a more likely outcome than change in these situations, at least in the short term. But the stories got me thinking about the durability of many of the top executives in tech companies. I decided to graph out the management of a few major corporations.
Just a few months ago, the Playstation 4 was not even a thought on Sony’s collective mind — at least according to Sony Computer Entertainment head Kaz Hirai.
But now, a different executive has fessed up. Work on a future Playstation platform is already underway, says Masaru Kato, Sony’s executive vice president and chief financial officer. His comments came up when asked to explain higher research and development costs to investors, Eurogamer reports.
Sony’s next video console, which at this point has no name or release date, won’t require the kind of huge investment that made the Playstation 3 unprofitable for years, Kato said. With the Playstation 3, Sony invested in its own semiconductor facilities, but that seems unlikely this time around.
(UPDATE: Kato tells the Wall Street Journal that his remarks on research and development costs were actually in reference to Sony’s next-generation portable system, and that his other comments were a “general statement,” rather than an acknowledgement that the PS4 is in development. Sounds like spin to me, but whatever.)
It took a few weeks, but Sony is making good on its promise of free identity protection to Playstation Network users.
The service, good for one year, is offered through AllClearID PLUS, and is available to anyone who activated a PSN account before April 20. To get the service, enter your e-mail at Sony’s identity theft protection page. Within 72 hours, you’ll get an activation code, which must be redeemed at AllClear’s website by June 28. The AllClear package includes $1 million of identity theft insurance, cyber monitoring and other perks.
The Playstation Network was hacked between April 17 and April 19, forcing Sony to shut down the network for four weeks. Nearly a week after confirming the outage, Sony revealed the full extent of the damage: Hackers stole names, e-mails, addresses, birthdates and passwords. There was no evidence of credit card theft on the Playstation Network, but a separate attack on Sony Online Entertainment resulted in the theft of 12,700 credit card numbers. All but 900 were expired, Sony said.
At this point, I wonder how many people are going to take Sony up on the identity theft protection offer. Judging from the reader reaction here and on other blogs, there was a strong sentiment of “I don’t care about the data, just let me play Call of Duty again.” Sony began restoring Playstation Network services on May 14, although the Playstation Store for downloadable content remains down until the end of this month.
Finally, some good news out of Sony. The company announced that it’s going to remaster PSP games for the Playstation 3, with high-definition graphics, new content and possibly 3D support.
Best of all, the players’ progress in a game will be transferable between either platform, so you can pick up on the PS3 where you left off on the PSP, and vice versa. Japan will get the first PSP remaster with Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, a hugely-popular game in that country. It’s not clear what other games or regions are in the works, but hopefully the E3 trade show in June will bring some clarity.
The Playstation Network may be back online, but the hacking of Sony’s websites never ends.
Facing increasing criticism of his company’s handling of the PSN hack — and now apparently a new security issue — Sony’s CEO Sir Howard Stringer has suddenly become much more vocal in striking down critics. The company’s new logic appears to be that “no network is 100 percent secure,” and that the attack on its servers was “unprecedented.”
Stringer’s comments came in the form of interviews with several outlets, including Bloomberg, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and others. He argued that the company’s notification of the hack within a week was faster than other companies have alerted their own users of data loss, sometimes months after the fact.
One of Sony’s new Playstation Network security measures has turned into another vulnerability.
As Eurogamer describes it: Anyone who signs into the Playstation Network after the outage is required to change his or her password. But with this exploit, all you need to make the change is the e-mail and date of birth associated with the account. This information was compromised during the PSN breach last month, which means hackers could use the vulnerability to take control of users’ accounts. The exploit was first reported by Nyleveia.com, and confirmed to Eurogamer with video evidence.
Of course, this isn’t a problem on actual consoles. A hacker on the other side of the world can’t change your login from your living room. But it does present an issue for Sony’s websites, where Sony has now shut down the login process entirely.
To be clear, the exploit has no impact on the Playstation Network itself, which was back online as of Saturday. And I doubt many people were affected, but if you were, you’d have received an e-mail from Sony saying your password was changed. If you’ve already changed your own password, there’s nothing to worry about.
Still, the exploit is another blunder by Sony, which spent four weeks rebuilding the Playstation Network to prevent future attacks, and brought in outside experts to make sure everything was clean. I guess they missed a spot.
Poor Sony. In addition to rebuilding the Playstation Network and enduring weeks of well-deserved criticism for letting hackers through its defenses, the company faced one more unenviable task: creating a “Welcome Back” package that will actually pacify customers.
The result is rather generous. Playstation 3 users get to choose from two of the following: Dead Nation, inFamous, LittleBigPlanet, Super Stardust HD and WipeOut HD + Fury. PSP users get two games from another list: LittleBigPlanet for PSP, Modnation Racers, Pursuit Force and Killzone Liberation. Everyone gets a free weekend of selected movies, 30 days of Playstation Plus (or 60 if you’re already a subscriber) and 100 free items in Playstation Home. Music Unlimited users get 30 free days.
I assume most people are mainly interested in the free games, which make up the bulk of the retail value in this apology package. And while I have a hard time faulting Sony for giving away so much — the PS3 package has a maximum $60 value — I also can’t shake the feeling that Sony’s best customers are getting a raw deal.
