Please see below for a letter from Howard Stringer:
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
(cont.)
This is not to mention the countless number of people paranoid about their personal info (and rightly so! – myself included) being told their information got stolen then stopped there without further updates. Of course in situations like these people would naturally expect the worst.
And of course there are those who just want to know when PSN will be back so they’d get online. While in the grand scheme they were the least priority (again, obvious reasons – privacy comes first). But the bigger issue is what I outlined above.
I hope you see what I mean.
But why a cut off date?
Hmm I do not think that any other gaming networks offers ID theft. ..well.. I think that is a bit of good news and deserves some Kudos.
@Yazter Aye, Point taken. Rock & a hard place much? I see both sides. I’m sure they were thinking both sides as well.
I might take up the offer for the identity theft program. It can’t hurt, even though I don’t think any of us are in real danger. I can’t believe I overlooked the fact that people and companies like SONY are still recovering from the earthquake and tsunami. I can’t imagine how awful it must feel for people in Japan at this time, and now having to deal with this attack on their company, well being, and customer’s well being. This, if anything, is a lesson to not take things for granted.
Thanks for the updates, but we just want a specific date or actual time frame since it was said this week and it’s nearly friday and still nothing. I just bought Portal 2 off of Amazon and I hope it’s up and running by the time I get it, I want to play some co-op!
I thank you for that personally and am glad to see things are rolling and we will be back before we know it.
Good thing Sony Has insurance for “Cleaning UP” this mess.
Thank you, Mr. Stringer. I appreciate that you took the time to address us. We are all anxious, though, to get back to playing, so I hope when you say “coming days,” it is in the next couple.
Appreciate the updates and efforts going into this. I do think you guys should hold on to intense security as there is word going around of another ‘big’ attack on PSN once it’s up. Hopefully everything will be bricked well though and we can all enjoy PSN again :D. I love me some Portal 2 co op :D
[DELETED] man there still saying [DELETED] lik in the comming days blah blah blah just give us a solid date [DELETED] its just wrong how ur stringing us along dont care how sorry u are anymore just fix a date………….
Who the hell is Howard Stringer?
See it’s all good now…and pretty soon it will come back. I got done last week being angry and upset.
now this is what i am talking about, great job Howard, great job Sony. looking forward to enjoying the services offered, and getting back to having fun with my friends and neighbors in the Playstation community.
awesomesauce
(can’t wait to see gaming related blog posts again)….just for toast. :p
Dear Mr. Howard Stringer
As a long time PlayStation gamer since the original PlayStation, I’ve been very impressed through the PS1 ~ PS2 era of Sony Computer Entertainment. However, with this generation of games (i.e. the PlayStation 3), it’s been a phenomenal ride, but there have been far too many bad instances that shine a negative light on Sony & Sony Computer Entertainment.
In regards to the PS3 specifically, my issues are and were…
1. The $500 and $600 launch price. That’s why I didn’t buy the PS3 at launch. I actually got my first PS3 when the slim 250 GB first came out in the US.
2. With subsequent PS3 SKUs, features and hardware were removed 1 by 1 including the media card readers, PS2 backwards compatibility, Other OS, and 2 USB ports. It’s really a shame.
3. When you or someone else high up in Sony claimed that the PS3 was unhackable, you guys painted a nice bright red target on yourselves to the hacking community. I’m not familiar with what is involved in hacking and whatnot as it is probably very complicated, but I do know that any and all devices can be hacked eventually.
wow howard stringer . Big time sony exec come down to tell us everything is alright. That means alot. thank you and happy mothers day to everyone in advance at psn and on the forums,and arounf the world :)
mcbuttz78
vp-psn legioniarre comittee
why cant i post?
in honesty i will believe it when i see it; furthermore, you should not have sat upon your laurels when the information became available, the breach should have been made public knowledge immediately, not a few days after the fact. perhaps next time we the consumers will not be as forgiving, and trust is something you will honestly have to earn back in the future.
you should honestly start listening to your consumers world wide, and perhaps not act as though we owe you, this attack in essence was in fact your fault for not continuing to keep peoples information perfectly safe right from the beginning.
and i for one will have a difficult time trusting you in the future.
How cool would it be in the good will package they got us the Black Ops map pack early?
Even with the most detailed info they can give us, people find things to complain about
WEll thank you sir for writing this to us and you didnt have to give us anything and you did now that is Epic S*** not only PS+ for 30 days but ID theft por is BEAST THANK U SONY
SONY FTW
Thank you Mr. Stringer.
:-)
THIS GUY REALLY GETS YOUR HEART ….LOL
Yippie i love Sony! (no [DELETED]!!) xD
I love you guys ** hugs **
Dude,
You seriously should resign…
I didn’t bother reading one word…it’s been weeks….for anyone to just speak out now is an insult. (Again my anger is at not protecting data adequately and testimony in Congress today not that the network is down, which is not your fault).
It’s completely insulting how Sony treats it’s customers…including the way you let Grace Chen ignore complaints. And can your stupid spokesman, too. He’s quiet, now, when normally he’s taking cheap shots at the competition and is the kind of spokesman that turns off people over the age of 12 because he’s an obnoxious jerk.
Thank you for the kind letter! I don’t blame you, Sony. I blame the hackers responsible. Take your time in making PSN even better! :D
Sounds like good news. Also the I.d. Protection is a sweet deal, for peace of mind for all psn users. Sony it has been a hard time for all of us, thank you and Sony still rocks. Now,how about you guys release hot shots golf 6?and all would be forgotten. Lol
just get us back online
After nearly seven months of being off of the PS3, I finally broke down and bought another only to find out that Sony was down. Imagine the disappointment I felt when I learned of this. I bought a few games: have nearly completed all of them, and have trophies to sync to my account. I would be one happy camper if they get the service back on ASAP, preferably this weekend would be nice while I’m not flooded with college homework. I appreciate the information that Sony is releasing, but enough with the teasing already. Instead of saying that PSN will be back in service within a few days or “this week,” don’t mention anything of the sort unless for sure it will be happening. Thank you.
@63
By not wanting to listen to the man responsible for this whole company, you are being a complete ignorant fool.
How can you have a fair discussion over these matters if you are not giving people the chance to explain themselves and apologize, specially when this is the man behind the whole company?
Didn’t bother reading one word?
More like didn’t bother listening to reason, rather believing in fear-mongering self-proclaimed journalists who simply want to watch the company burn.
@Rawstory I believe Sony did a hell of a good job and very professional job about this Huge issue and I for one is very proud of them I take your Rude and words of choice offensive as you so called them “obnoxious jerk” next time keep your words to yourself. I don’t welcome people with your choice of words in my Vision so begone.
black ops double points coming up , are we gonna miss this event?
In addition: I have a $50 PSN burning a hole in my pocket and nearly through the thickness of my thigh. I’m craving to make my first purchases in seven months of being away, also re-connecting with the good people I’ve met both in online gaming and PlayStation Home.
“in the coming days”
Awesome, but we will still probably miss out on the Double XP Weekend on Black Ops…hopefully we get an extension on PS3 :D
Howard Stringer, you should also be apologising for Sony selling a defective console that breaks after less than 2 years due to YLOD. It is a well documented defect of the pre Slim models. Redress this situation by offering free repairs.
Also you should be apologising for the lack of communication regarding customers’ requests. There has been complete silence on most of the top requested features on the PS Blog Share. Absolutely no response. Customers who bought your product are being ignored. The PS3 is in last place for good reason and this fiasco will only exacerbate the situation. Change your ways before it is too late.
“In the coming days, we will restore service to the networks and welcome you back to the fun.”
— Howard Stringer
“We continue to work around the clock to have some PlayStation Network services and Qriocity services restored, and will be providing you specific details shortly. ”
— Patrick Seybold
“We will provide additional updates as soon as we can.”
— Patrick Seybold
“We are working around the clock to have some PlayStation Network services restored and we’ll be providing specific details shortly.”
— Patrick Seybold
“…and rest assured that we’re going to get the services back online as quickly as we can. ”
— Patrick Seybold
Do I need to continue?
I smell [DELETED].
I made like 20 posts here but none of them are being posted to the comments.
“In the coming days, we will restore service to the networks and welcome you back to the fun.”
Really? Sounds like what you guys have been saying all the time just in different words.
What coming days? Don’t you really mean in the coming months? At the rate you guys are supposedly fixing this, we’ll probably see like Uncharted 3 released before PSN is fully restored.
You just put a smile on a gamers face.
Mr. Stringer,
Thank you for the letter. Not only do I hope that the new PSN is rock solid and secure, but I hope that you catch the criminals that did this costing you, what I am sure is, millions of dollars and a huge knock on your otherwise good reputation. As a playstation gamer since release day of the PS1, I am confident in many more years of excellent Playstation gaming.
Kind Regards Sir.
That was nice. Don’t make the same mistakes again. Your customers are number 1 priority, not the games.
You guys(SONY) need to promote Motorstorm Apocalyspe!!! Got it day one and its so awesome!……its a shame it came out during this whole mess and it got delayed last month…..Evolution Studios did a great job with this game
HEY GUYS CHECK THIS WEB LINK OUT!!
playstationlifestyle.net/2011/05/05/psn-still-on-track-for-this-week/
Users of the official PlayStation forums expressed this frustration, to which SCEE’s Community Team Leader, MusterBuster, responded to try and ease the minds of the masses of PSN users eager to get back to their normal online gaming habits. MusterBuster’s message reads:
Hey guys,
I would love to be able to give you new information, and right now there isn’t any available.
I’m asking lots of questions but at the moment all I’m being told is that the “last update still stands” eg – Some PlayStation Network services will be restored this week.
The very second I hear anything new, it will be passed on to you. I’m also keeping a note of your feedback throughout this outage, so keep posting it.
Much love,
MB
Hoping to see online so I can preorder a couple games in time. One’s this Tuesday, so I hope it’s done before then though I’m not in time to get it day 1 (which really isn’t a big deal to me, plus I’m sure alot of us will be catching up with friends/online games when we get online) Otherwise, before the 24th is good for me. :)
Otherwise, getting pretty bored at this point and don’t want to fire up games not played in awhile due to missing trophies. Sooooooooooo….at least Futurama is on. :)
still no details. another update with the same informations. i’m pretty sure there will be another update at the beginning of the the next week saying exactly same thing.
Thank SONY and good job. Do what you must, bring the hacker to justic. We will stand by you, as always.
Get er dun!
As Much As I Hate To Wait! I’ll Say This Only Once. Take Your Time To Fix PSN. As Much As you need, And Make the PSN service as safe As posible, Even if it pisses me Off!!!
And Thanks For The heads-up Howard!