Following the news that around 77 million Playstation accounts were compromised in April, Sony now suspects that hackers may have accessed the personal information of another 25 million online gamers.
The breach was discovered by engineers and security consultants reviewing Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) systems, who believe that that personal information from approximately 24.6 million SOE accounts may have been stolen, as well as certain information from an outdated 2007 database.
The information from the outdated database includes approximately 12,700 non-US credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes), and about 10,700 direct debit records of certain customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain.
With the current outage of the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services and the ongoing investigation into the recent attacks, SOE had also undertaken an intensive investigation into its system. On discovery of this additional information, the company promptly shut down all servers related to SOE services while continuing to review and upgrade all of its online security systems in the face of these unprecedented cyber-attacks.
On May 1st, Sony apologised to its customers for the inconvenience caused by its network services outages. The company is working with the FBI and continuing its own full investigation while working to restore all services.
Sony will send e-mails to all consumers whose data may have been stolen.
The personal information of the approximately 24.6 million SOE accounts that was illegally obtained includes name, address, e-mail address, date of birth, gender, phone number, login name and hashed password.
In addition to this information, the 10,700 direct debit records from accounts in Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Spain, include customer name, address and bank account number.
Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, Sony will now provide a free service to assist users to enrol in identity theft protection services and/or similar programmes.