Sony withheld PSN hack truth - report
Deliberately misleading?
Sony knew hackers had pinched personal PSN data a full day earlier than we've been lead to believe, according to a new report.
Kyodo news (via Kotaku) obtained, via a freedom of information request, sensitive documents that proved Sony understood roughly the extent of the PSN hack on 25th April. PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai said this wasn't the case until 26th April.
On 26th April, Sony downplayed that internal report of a "fairly large" data theft by telling the world it "couldn't rule out the possibility" personal information had gone walkabouts.
Why?
Sony didn't want to "bewilder" customers. "We hadn't figured out (at that time) what kind of data had been leaked," a Sony spokesperson defended. "If only passwords and IDs (were breached), they cannot be considered personal information, and so we didn't want to bewilder our customers."
Does a day's delay signify Sony deliberately belittling the importance of the data theft?
PlayStation Network went offline on 20th April 2011. Nine days later, Sony announced that personal data including credit card information had been stolen. Upwards of 70 million people were at risk. Sony still doesn't know who was responsible.