Governments demand answers from Sony over PlayStation data theft
30 Apr 2011
The US, Britain, Australia and Hong Kong are investigating the hacking and theft of personal data from Sony's PlayStation Network. The network has 77 million users worldwide.
A US House of Representatives panel yesterday dispatched a letter to Sony chairman Kazuo Hirai that seeks answers to some questions on the data breach.
"Sony's statement describes information illegally obtained to include account information as well as potentially profile information," said the letter from a panel of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which was posted on the internet.
"Given the amount and nature of personal information known to have been taken, the potential harm that could be caused if credit card information was also taken would be quite significant."
The committee, which is also seeking to know the reasons why it believes credit card information, was not taken despite being unable to determine the exact scale of the theft.
According to Sony, users' credit card data was encrypted but it could not rule out the possibility that hackers might have obtained card data.
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