A NUMBER of Irish users of Sony’s PC gaming platforms have had their bank or credit card details stolen in the second serious breach of the electronic giant’s security in less than a week.
Sony Ireland confirmed that 41 Irish users of its Online Entertainment PC games network had their financial details stolen in the latest cyber-attack against it and warned that more than 12,000 users worldwide had their credit or debit card details similarly compromised.
The company also said that names, addresses, e-mails, birthdates, phone numbers and other information from 24.6 million PC games accounts may have been stolen from its servers as well as from an “outdated database” from 2007.
It said the breach may have led to the theft of 10,700 direct debit records from customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain and 12,700 non-US credit or debit card numbers.
The company said it had been hacked on April 18th, but did not find out about the breach until the early hours of yesterday morning after which it immediately shut down the service.
A separate attack on the company’s PlayStation Network, which it announced last Thursday, saw details of 77 million account-holders breached.
Sony Ireland told The Irish Timesthere were 436,158 Irish PlayStation network accounts but added that some consumers would have more than one such account.
Sony’s PlayStation network allows game console owners download games and play against other people on the network while its Online Entertainment network hosts games played over the internet on PCs.
A spokesman for the Data Protection Commissioner said the company had provided it with an initial report into the breach of its PlayStation network and said that while an investigation was ongoing it would be unable to comment further. In connection with the latest breach the spokesman said the office had contacted Sony seeking a further report.
He said it would investigate the matter along with other European data protection authorities. “This office will focus on securing the rectification of the problems that have led to this breach and the prevention of any repeat incident,” he said. The commissioner’s office is recommending that users of the affected services should immediately change passwords for any web-based services, such as e-mail accounts that use the same or similar passwords.
It has also reminded consumers to be “vigilant against spam or other attempts at fraud based on the information gleaned from Sony’s systems”.
Sony Ireland echoed the commissioner’s advice and said consumers needed to remain vigilant”.