Sony Online Entertainment says its customer data is safe

by Ben Gilbert on Apr 28th 2011 10:00AM

Though the PlayStation Network and Qriocity side of Sony's digital services may have been subject to a massive breach of user information, it seems that Sony Online Entertainment product users are safe. SOE reps took to Sony's forums to clear the air, saying, "We have been conducting a thorough investigation and, to the best of our knowledge, no customer personal information got out to any unauthorized person or persons."

The post also acknowledges a "continuing investigation" currently taking place at SOE, and notes that the company will "promptly notify" customers of any change in the situation. SOE's games -- including Free Realms and DC Universe Online -- temporarily went offline on April 21 and have since had service restored. An SOE rep states that "SOE's systems and databases are separate from PSN's," thus explaining how the company's games are still working -- and how your information wasn't stolen.

Meanwhile, as reported by our sister site Massively, SOE is working on a "make good plan" for Free Realms and DCUO players on the PlayStation 3, as well as holding a handful of in-game events across multiple games in the coming weeks.

Source: Sony
More coverage: Massively

Tags: DC-Universe-Online, mac, mmo, outage, pc, playstation, ps3, psn, psn-outage-2011, soe, sony, sony-online-entertainment

Reader Comments (60)

What do you want Sony, a cookie?

Sorry, the more I hear about this fiasco and the longer it drags on, the more bitter and sarcastic I get. I just want to play some Killzone 3 and Mortal Kombat online with my buddies (most of which live far away). Is that too much to ask?

Please, no one answer that question. I already know the answer :'(

@The Pork i want a cookie

@The Pork

It all makes sense now! The hackers got our data to buy MORE cookies! I must forward this sensitive information to Sony double speed!

@(Unverified)

I'll message you my credit card info so you can buy one using that.

@The Pork

Well I'm glad you think online with your friends play with your buddies is way more important then identity protection. Lemme tell you man, it's not fun to get a call from collections from something you've never owned. A few years ago I found out someone opened a home phone under my ID with Verizon and it took many months to clear up.

PS Who the hell needs a home phone now?

@SaviorSpherioth
I just woke up but if the first sentence was in English it'd look like this.

Well I'm glad you think online play with your friends is way more important then identity protection.

@The Pork

Sony doesn't inform users* = OMG Y DON'T U TELL US WATS GOING ON WTF?

Sony informs users* = Who cares?

Geez, tough job for PR

@sfadgsdawfadgd

Yeah, Sony needs to hire Reggie on a contractual basis to solve this little PR problem for them.

@SaviorSpherioth

When did I say one was more important than the other? For what it's worth, I had my credit card stolen last year and had $7,000 worth of stuff racked up on it in about 20 minutes. It does suck, and I'm well aware of that. Oh, and I've already cancelled the credit card I used on PSN.

This is a gaming site, so though this whole situation is horrible on many different levels, I found it apt to comment on my gaming situation specifically.

Sheesh.

@A Sandwich

Reggie would kick ass and take names!... and birthdays, and addresses, credit card numbers...

@A Sandwich AAARGHHH!!! Franken-Reggie no like security breaches!

@sfadgsdawfadgd I Guess that's how Sony sees it...you damned if you do your damned if you don't try to inform people they just say "HURRY AND FIX PSN" you leave them uninformed to fix Psn they say "SONY...WHY U NO UPDATE US!?!?" >_>

@JnRx

You compare me to an unintelligent, hyperactive gamer, yet you're the one with numerous grammar and spelling mistakes.

The reason for my sarcastic "cookie" comment is because this to me is Sony desperately trying to put some kind of positive spin on this whole situation (it's called PR - wikipedia it, bro). I *do* want to know what's going on, but this 'news' doesn't help me at all. I want to know more about the Playstation Network, what damage the hackers managed to do, why it happened, when we'll expect PSN back up, etc, etc, etc.

@The Pork

Guess what? Your situation is that same for the rest of the active PSN users out there. We all want our multiplayer back, we'd all like a timeframe. Sony came out and said that the SoE info is safe and your comment was who cares I wanna pwn noobs.

It's like you also said, this is a gaming site and as a gamer that has experienced ID theft my immediate reaction was "good" because I wouldn't want other gamers to have to deal with this.

@The Pork
Uh, they've already answered all your questions. What do you want, exactly? Looks to me like you want to bitch for the sake of bitching. It's OK, you're pissed you can't play your games online, but it doesn't excuse pissing on Sony for no real reason.

You wanted transparency, you're getting transparency. Now you're whining the transparency isn't transparent enough and you want a set-in-stone date to when you can play your "vidya gaems" again. I hate to break it to you, but A) they've already said they expect to have some funcitonality at the latest and B) it's physically impossible for them to say "WE WILL HAVE ALL OF PSN BACK UP ON MAY 2ND AT 12:25 PM EASTERN TIME WITH 17 SECONDS". If you knew anything about re-building a network infrastructure in an emergency you wouldn't childishly expect such things.

@PointlessPuppies

They haven't answered all my questions, actually. You're sadly mistaken if you think Sony is being completely (or even remotely) up front and transparent about this whole situation.

As for your silly, sarcastic comment about the timing of PSN coming back, I'm not looking for an answer down to the second. But it's *not* impossible to put a date on it.

You and a lot of other people are being way too forgiving, way too quickly toward Sony. They f*cked up royally, and it's going to take a lot more than a statement like this to satisfy me and get me to start raining praise on them.

If you knew anything about public relations and how to fix problems like this, you wouldn't be childishly sticking up for a corporation that's doing what Sony is doing right now with its users.

@The Pork Going out on a limb here and going to say that you are a student taking marketing classes and you think that you know everything there is about PR and such.

@baddates77
Hahaha, that Franken-Reggie comment was by far the funniest thing I've heard all day!

@baddates77

Couldn't be more wrong, my witty online commenter. I'm not a student, and I've never taken anything related to marketing. This is just common sense stuff that any Joe Consumer should know. If you're going to tell me Sony is doing a good job handling this stuff, I'm going to fall out out of my chair.

Now I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you enjoy making pointless, unfunny comments to online stories in your spare time.

*looks up at baddates77's previous comments*

Yup, looks like I was right.

yay!! :D

I don't think SOE is doing a good enough job at distinguishing for folks that while THEIR info is "secure" Sony's isn't/wasn't.

"to the best of our knowlege"... That's not very reassuring, considering the events of these last few days.

@Raiderfan ^^knowledge^^ I really need to proofread before sending.

Don't worry guys, this guy is giving Sony some help
http://i51.tinypic.com/2zid76a.jpg

@Rogerrr57 Certainly eases my mind.

@Rogerrr57

dude, if kojima is involved it means the hackers stole the nuke codes not peeps CC

@Rogerrr57

dude, if kojima is involved it means the hackers stole the nuke codes.

aye well done Sony.

let me get out my big box market sarcastic party streamers
and paper wizzy noise horns

wiiiiiizzzrrr prrrrrpt! *insert streamers*

I like turtles.

cool, my friend wants to play the game so bad and tho i wanna play too but not as badly as my friend. i can't wait too see the in game events too come.

LIES! That does it! I'm selling my PS3 and saving the money for the new Nintendo HD! Best Battlefield 3 on a console here I come!

I love how people are enraged over sony being hacked

yet when AIG and dozens of other companies go out of their way to completely destroy the worlds economy, steal our money, and then give them selves million dollar bonuses with our bailout money we just let it happen.

@eat it

Oh, for f*ck's sake, are you serious? Most people have the brain capacity to multitask at least a little bit and it's not a "one or the other" type scenario. We can be pissed at both.

@A Sandwich

I'm sorry Sandwhich, but from what I've read, people pick and choose what they are mad at. It's making the gaming community look like a bunch of immature idiots as they are acting like stark raving mad lunatics (on the forums anyways). Now imagine if what Sony has said is true, these raving posters will earn the douche bag of the year award for 2011 and we are not even halfway into the year.

@eat it

This is stupid logic. It's like saying why should we be mad the guy who stabbed the mother of three in gut when there's a man over here who killed people.

It's just a knife in the gut.

@eat it

Are you paid to be a corporate whore for Sony?
Just wondering.

BTW asswipe, I JUST got my email from Sony this morning. If I wasn't a "tech geek", odds are I'd just be finding out about this. That's BS! That's what people are pissed off about.

@A Sandwich
agreed. I wasn't aware I had to constantly make the world known of my moral outrages, and make sure my list of grievances is ranked.

Also, why would I go to Joystiq blog comments to express my outrage over wall street banks, or anything unrelated to video games or the article's topic?

@Knight Marquise
By the way dicktissue, have you ever emailed 77 million people?

@carmaction
PS3 as only sold about 33 million units so its not as bad as you thin. And I don't care how many people they have 10 days is far to long to wait.

Wonder why a lot of people are reporting faulty payments on their credit cards from this and I wonder why the other day they fully admitted to info getting out. Lying doesn't do you any good Sony, just fix it.

@Sift

SOE is different from the PSN. The user data from the PSN was breached, not SOE. They're not lying, it's just simply a different division.

@Funkmaster General
OH, I see what they did there... That's a very shady thing to do.

@KaySakura Not as shady as you might think. Basically, they're addressing the scenario where Joe EverQuest hears "OMGWTF SONY HAX!!!" but doesn't hear know it's specifically PSN. Thus SOE wants to clarify "it wasn't *us* that were hacked, please continue playing EverQuest, thankyouverymuch."

I got what I paid for.

@ShadowXIII

So if I ever get something for free then I should just assume that it comes with a side of possible identity theft? Real solid thinking there, buddy.

The whole point of PSN being free was to offer a selling point that Microsoft didn't. The mantra that Sony's been pushing for the last 5 years was "Why pay to play online?" not "Shit happens, now deal with it."

@A Sandwich
thats a very good way of looking at that

@A Sandwich

"The whole point of PSN being free was to offer a selling point that Microsoft didn't. The mantra that Sony's been pushing for the last 5 years was "Why pay to play online?" not "Shit happens, now deal with it." "

You got that from a certain Penny Arcade blog post, didn't you?

@A Sandwich

Nah, I was just troll baiting is all. ^_^ I think I'll go have a sandwich.

@ShadowXIII

You bastard!!!

@A Sandwich

...I mean...it was like a deer in headlights walking through a minefield, man....

*OM NOM NOM!*

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DC Universe Online

Sony Online Entertainment says its customer data is safe

Reader Comments (60)

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:08AM The Pork said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:10AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:15AM acefondu said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:19AM The Pork said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:20AM SaviorSpherioth said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:22AM SaviorSpherioth said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:28AM sfadgsdawfadgd said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:37AM A Sandwich said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:55AM The Pork said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:59AM Uncle Jesse said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:20AM baddates77 said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:39AM JnRx said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:56AM The Pork said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:59AM SaviorSpherioth said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 12:43PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 1:51PM The Pork said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 2:47PM baddates77 said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 3:31PM jwalsh1989 said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 3:44PM The Pork said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:09AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:12AM WhiteRime said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:14AM Raiderfan said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:19AM Raiderfan said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:16AM Rogerrr57 said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:25AM Piko said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 12:55PM Simstim said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:46AM Simstim said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:28AM prodigy69 said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:33AM GravyWeasel said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:33AM HardBoiled2009 said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:45AM xFenixKnightx said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:46AM eat it said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:01AM A Sandwich said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:34AM ToTheMoon said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:38AM Nofriendo said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:41AM Knight Marquise said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:42AM MLS said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:50AM carmaction said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 2:43PM KaySakura said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:47AM Sift said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:01AM Funkmaster General said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 2:46PM KaySakura said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 3:50AM LoopyChew said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:49AM ShadowXIII said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:04AM A Sandwich said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 11:50AM Protege420 said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 12:46PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 2:41PM ShadowXIII said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 5:26PM A Sandwich said

Posted: Apr 28th 2011 10:23PM ShadowXIII said

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