Scourge · April 20 2011

The Great Silence of the PlayStation

Chronicle

On 20 April 2011 Sony took the PlayStation Network and its Qriocity service offline after intruders had stolen personal data from about 77 million accounts between 17 and 19 April. The service stayed down for 23 days, leaving millions of players without online games. Sony only told users on 26 April that their data had been exposed.

Lesson learned

It became a textbook case of why users must be told early, and of how much it costs to rebuild trust as well as servers.

Prayer of reparation

O PlayStation Network, silent for twenty-three days, let those who keep our data warn us at once, not after a week of "maintenance". Amen.

How it is remembered

Remembered by changing passwords reused elsewhere, turning on two-factor authentication and preparing the user-notification plan in advance.