Case Study - Sony PlayStation Network hack and theft of 70 million customer records
Case study: PlayStation Network Hack "In April 2011, Sony revealed that the PlayStation Network, used by millions of consumers worldwide, had been breached by hackers. The breach went unnoticed by Sony for several days and ultimately resulted in the theft of up to 70 million customer records. The records included customer names, addresses, emails, dates of birth and account password details. Information which could have enabled additional attacks or identity theft. In order to assess the scale of the damage and repair the vulnerabilities that led to the attack Sony took the PlayStation Network offline, a move which cost the company, and merchants who offered services via the network, significant amounts of revenue. In addition to the cost of fixing the breach, Sony was fined £250,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office as a result of a ‘serious breach’ of the Data Protection Act, stating that ‘The case is one of the ...