Sony CEO issues apology to PSN customers

Fallout from the recent PSN attacks has placed Sony president and CEO Sir Howard Stringer in eye of what business experts call "a public relations shitstorm" - the likes of which threatens to do irreversible damage to both Sony and Stringer's reputations, regardless of any fancy knighthood titles. In a move to begin rebuilding relationships with PSN malcontents, Stringer has issued a public letter offering his apology for the ongoing PSN woes, as well as insight as to how Sony has reacted to the crisis, and how it plans to do to make amends.

"Dear Friends, I know this has been a frustrating time for all of you. Let me assure you that the resources of this company have been focused on investigating the entire nature and impact of the cyber-attack we’ve all experienced and on fixing it," reads the opening to Stringer'smissive on theUS the European PlayStation Blog. "We are absolutely dedicated to restoring full and safe service as soon as possible and rewarding you for your patience. We will settle for nothing less."

Stringer affirmed Sony's beliefno evidence credit card informationhas yet beencompromised as a direct result of the hacker attacks, but promised the company is continuing to monitor the situation.Moreover, heannounced all US PSN members would be protected by a $1 million identity theft insurance policy from Debix starting today, with similar policies for other markets set to arrive at a later date.

Stringer also addressed concerns Sony had waited too long to inform its customers of the attacks, responding:

"I know some believe we should have notified our customers earlier than we did. It’s a fair question. As soon as we discovered the potential scope of the intrusion, we shut down the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services and hired some of the best technical experts in the field to determine what happened. I wish we could have gotten the answers we needed sooner, but forensic analysis is a complex, time-consuming process. Hackers, after all, do their best to cover their tracks, and it took some time for our experts to find those tracks and begin to identify what personal information had — or had not — been taken."

Concluding, Stringer reconfirmed Sony's commitment to bringing PSN back online in bits and pieces within the next few days, adding, "I wanted to personally reach out and let you know that we are committed to serving you to the very best of our ability, protecting your information better than ever, and getting you back to what you signed up for."

Are these honorable words, or too little too late? Read Stringer's full letter here, and let us know if it makes you any more(or less) willing to put your faith in Sony's online services going forward.

[Source:PlayStation Blog UK]

May 6, 2011

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