At the moment, there’s a lot of running around changing passwords, cutting up credit cards and calling Sony the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.
In case you haven’t caught the news, the network that lets your Playstation hook up with other gamers and spend lots of money buying stuff online, has been down for about a week because of a security breach.
A good proportion of the people getting hysterical are young men. You see, they had to go through Easter without online gaming, so the criticism of Sony has had the testosterone fuelled intelligence of a teenage boy who’s been denied something he knows he deserves, i.e. none.
The security breach is bad - there’s no denying that - and Sony have not behaved well by leaving it as long as they did to tell the punters. But all the blame has been laid at their door which does not seem sensible.
The network was hacked. Sony was attacked in a criminal way. I have seen absolutely no news time devoted to, “We are going to find the guys who did this and prosecute them.” I mean, Sony might have left the front door open, but that doesn’t mean that passersby have the right to go in and ransack the house.
And strictly speaking, that analogy is unfair to Sony. They didn’t actually leave the front door open. They had 128 bit encryption and firewalls and bear-baits and all sorts of stuff that, while not the absolute tip-top example of indestructible IT security, they weren’t just leaving customer details in plastic bags on train seats. It took a concerted attack by people who are good at it. It was a bank-job.
It is going to cost Sony an absolute sack-load of fun coupons in lost days of trade and rebuilding. The damage to the brandname is going to be harder to measure but it won't be inconsequential, either.
I say, smack a hacker... then sue Sony.
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