Improve data security, Japanese government tells Sony

The Japanese government yesterday told Sony to strengthen its data security. The industry ministry has officially asked Sony to carry out preventive measures against data breaches, according to a statement of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in a statement today.

The company was also instructed to allay customer concerns over misuse of their credit cards as also share more information among affiliates, the statement said.

Earlier this month, citing security concerns, the Japanese government had declined to allow Sony to relaunch its PlayStation Network.(See: Sony embarrassed over Japan's no to PlayStation).

The Tokyo-based maker of PlayStation 3 game consoles would resume its online entertainment services across Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand tomorrow, even as services in South Korea and Hong Kong would continue to remain suspended until further notice, Sony said today. The full restoration of the network including purchases of games and video content has been planned by the end of this month.

The government had three discussions with Sony since 26 April, when Sony reported some customer data may have been stolen, the statement said.

The statement said Sony had responded to the request by the government to provide details of the data leak, the company's plan to enhance security management and protection of customer information.

The firm, which suffered further attacks this week, across more websites worldwide, including in Greece and Thailand, had delayed announcing the initial security breach which happened on 19April by a week.