Sony Restarts Its PSN Service in North America, Offering Equally Attractive “Welcome Package”

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This Friday Sony initiated the offering it had promised earlier, regarding the games and virtual goods for its loyal members of PlayStation Network who had to suffer patiently on the hands of one of the world’s largest hack attack. This "Welcome Back" program for the users of North America offers all the network members having PlayStation 3 consoles to be able to choose two completely free complementary games from the list of five high-ranked games including inFAMOUS and LittleBigPlanet. Whereas, the members who use the Network service through their PlayStation Portable (PSP) devices will be given the option of choosing two free games out of the list of four, which again includes as high-ranked games as Killzone Liberation and ModNation Racers.

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Furthermore, the package entitled all effected PSN members to a, totally free of cost, month-long access to its PlayStation Plus subscription service, which features discounts on games, exclusive digital content and more. Moreover, the welcome-cum-apology package of Sony had an additional offering of 100 virtual items to be bought from the PlayStation Home shop, which faced also equal damages as the PSN and Qriocity music-streaming service. Senior director of PSN, Susan Panico, declared in his official blog post that "Today, we're excited to launch the Welcome Back program to thank you for your loyalty." This free “Welcome Package” will be available on Friday, as the users will be able to avail all the free content till July 3, states Panico. He also clarified that these “Welcome Back” packages differ for each regions, considering the local demand and its effects.

Sony Declares Its Annual Loss to Be Around $3.2 Billion

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Sony Corp. has announced an expected annual loss of $3.2 billion this year, rectifying its previous projection of an annual profit. The electronics giant is striving due to the interruption caused in the production line due to Japan's tsunami, and the problems were further amplified by the history’s largest hacker attack on its PlayStation Network. Sony’ is most popular for its gaming console, PlayStation 3, and Bravia flat-panel TVs. It declared its updated projection on Monday, showing a 260 billion yen ($3.2 billion) net loss for the fiscal year ended March 2011. Such loss was accounted mostly tracked back to the writing of 360 billion yen ($4.4 billion) to a tax credit booked in a previous quarter. The company had previously declared a projected 70 billion yen ($860 million) of profit in this year.

Along with plenty other Japanese manufacturers, Sony is still facing vulnerability in its production line due to the disastrous effects of earthquake and tsunami of 11^th March. Sony has retained its operating profit forecast at 200 billion yen ($2.46 billion) as it expects total sales of 7.18 trillion yen ($88.2 billion), barely any less than its previous projection of 7.2 trillion yen ($88.5 billion). The C.F.O. of Sony Corp., Masaru Kato, told that that only some parts of shortages caused by the earthquake have been improved, hence we cannot claim a full recovery yet. He added that "In the first quarter, we saw quite a major impact on our manufacturing activities.” Explaining that situation economically he stated that "negative factors have grown much bigger."

Sony Faces another Hack Attack; This Time Compromising Its Website Pages

A web page of the official Sony website in Thailand was hacked recently, redirecting the users to enter personal information on another fake webpage of an imposter Italian credit card company. It was disclosed by the security firm, F-Secure, on Friday that the hackers intended to, once again, steal personal and crucial information from customers.

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Recently Sony has continuously been victim of high-level hacking. First attack was exposed in April, when hackers successfully broke into Sony PlayStation Network and stole a huge chunk of data from more than 77 million accounts. Later on the 2^nd May, Sony further declared that hackers also stole another chunk of data, this time of almost 25 million user accounts via their Sony Online Entertainment website. The first attack on PSN is being considered to be the most large hack attack in the Internet history, which left the Sony devastated and it had to immediately suspend most of its services, including PlayStation Network, for almost a month.

Sony Suspends Its Website Pages after Discovering Security Loophole

Sony Corp has suspended its website pages it brought online to help retrieve the user accounts of millions of users which were affected by April's data theft incident. Sony claimed that it had found a "security hole" soon after bringing the website pages online. According to the spokesman of Sony, Dan Race, the company had soon discovered the security hole on its webpage which could have let the hackers, who had stolen the data previously, to use their stolen data and access the accounts of the users.

Image via WikipediaRace elaborated saying "If I had your email and your birth date I could have potentially got access to your account." Consequently, soon after making the site online on Wednesday, Sony took the PlayStation Network password reset page down tentatively. The Qriocity music recovery page also faced the same treatment. Race declared that as soon as they fix the problem, Sony will bring up those pages on the website.

Sony’s “Welcome Back” Package Offers Users Many Free Games, Movies and More

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After a month long wait, the highly criticized Sony's PlayStation Network has returned most of its features back online. Since the gamers were not able to interact online in internet gaming for a month, almost every user is equally anxious to log in their accounts, change their passwords, and resume the well deserved online gaming they have been patiently waiting for. In addition to that, the "Welcome Back" package of Sony also adds to the attraction; it was announced to compensate and make up for the downtime to all its users.

The “Welcome Back” package has awarded the effected users several offers for free games, movies and more. The PlayStation 3 users have been offered to choose any of the two free games it has put online, out of the list of five games in the “Welcome Package.” These five games are noted to be: Dead Nation, Infamous, Little Big Planet, Super Stardust HD and Wipeout HD. While for the PSP users, it has offered a list of four games, which have been put online for free, to select any two games and return to gaming. The list of four PSP games in the “Welcome Package” includes Little Big Planet PSP, ModNation Racers, Pursuit Force and Killzone Liberation.

Sony PlayStation Network Initializes its Phased Restoration

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Sony has finally restored its long-suspended PlayStation Network service, at least to the players of United States and Europe. The service was resorted on this Sunday, putting an end to an almost thirty-day service outage after one of the largest security breach of all times, which compromised personal information of over 100 million online users. The service is only partially restored as only limited functions have been activated like online gaming, chat and music streaming services. Sony has announced that it is aiming to restore the PlayStation Network completely to the situation it was before the attack, before June, 2011.

On Sunday Sony began its phased restoration of Qriocity movie and music services too, which share the music and movie on the PlayStation Network's server, informed the Sony’s spokesperson, Satoshi Fukuoka. He also added that the similar limited services will very soon be online in all; Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Middle East. After which only Asia will be left behind, which Sony states will be restored soon after that.

Hackers may have used Amazon server for Sony PSN breach

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The hackers behind one of the largest security breach in the history, one which corrupted the entire Sony’s PlayStation Network causing the personal information of around 100 million users being stolen, used an Amazon-run server for initiating the attack. Bloomberg was the first source to announce such news, claiming that it was cited from “a person with knowledge of the matter.”

Even though the hackers might have hijacked Amazon’s server, it is re

ported that they rather used a fake account for signing up an account using the Amazon’s EC2 service. After which they laid the foundation of one of the biggest cyber attack in the history ever. The account was immediately suspended right after the discovery of its nature but still, the allegation of using the Amazon’s cloud network to help precede such an enormous data breaches will definitely lay the reputation of Amazon questionable. This story is only published by Bloomberg, and it remains unconfirmed by either of Sony or Amazon, since the nature of such allegation is quite controversial itself and might have indefinite consequences.

According to the president of Online Intelligence, a security group, E.J. Hilbert, who has also previously worked as a cyber-crime agent in the FBI, claimed that if such news turns out to be true, FBI will definitely summon Amazon as a permanent party in the investigation of PSN hacks. She said that “The subpoena will give law enforcement a history of the transactions,” said Hilbert. “The search warrant will get them more detailed information, including payment information and which credit card was used.”

Sony Gives a Definite Time to Restore the PlayStation Network by the End of May, 2011

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Sony has finally made a decisive step and a definite stance regarding the return of its suspended PlayStation Network on this Tuesday; it said that it will completely bring back the PlayStation Network, to the normal working condition, in late May, 2011. The service was abruptly suspended after one of the largest security breach of this decade, having a major direct influence on the private data of even more than 100 million users.

Sony itself confessed that it has identified the compromising of personal data with 24.6 million of its user accounts, out of total, which were hacked in the attack. In elaboration, Personal data actually means everything from ones identity, name, birth, numbers, e-mail addresses, to even credit card numbers. In another statement the spokesmen of Sony, Satoshi Fukuoka, also added that there is likelihood that these details might be stolen from another 77 million PlayStation accounts. Even though he is asserting that Sony is not sure yet, or is informed from any source or reports, that this stolen data is being used illegally, however, one shall wonder, the hackers would not have stolen such large amount of data just to do nothing. Whereas, Fukuoaka also declared that the company has become intensely vigilant after the attack and has launched a full-scale inquiry and investigation regarding the incident. He, although, refused to answer any kind of questions which required the particulars or progress of this investigation taking place.

Newest Game of 'Call Of Duty' Franchise, Rumored ‘Modern Warfare 3,’ Might Release November This Year

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Activision Blizzard will be soon releasing the next version of its "Call of Duty" game series, not only for gaming consoles but also on its ambitious digital platform before the end of this year, declared the C.E.O. of Activision Publishing, Eric Hirshberg, while he was addressing a company’s conference call this Monday. He referred to the "Call of Duty" franchise, one of its two "significant investments" that Activision has made so far, which will also let expand the company's largest marketing campaign too, added the C.E.O of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, on the same call

Kotick stated that "This year's 'Call of Duty' initiatives will result in the best 'Call of Duty' experiences we have created to date," not only is the company adding plenty paid features to put together with the platform, he further claimed that "You will see a lot of new services and capabilities that will be provided free of charge to all of our customers."

Sony Playstation Network Still Remains Suspended As Rumors Say another Attack on Sony Corp. May Come Sooner

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Sixteen days have passed since the suspension of Sony PlayStation Network, as everyone still remains unaware of any sort of confirmation of its return. As far as the news is confirmed, the company has been dodging the question constantly; from all we know, it could come online today or maybe a week from now. The latest post pushed at the official blog of Sony Playstation still keeps the ambiguity claiming the service would be back ‘sooner.’ However, the reassuring part of this post claimed that the company’s "global network and security teams" are almost in its "final stages" of experiments before they could perhaps implement it.

According to more news, there’s a rumor on the street assert that Sony might just be falling victim to yet another attack number three. Previously, the primary service of Sony; Sony Online Entertainment, the PSN, and Qriocity services were under attack and still remain non-functional. Sony is hoping to make it up to its frustrated users, by offering a yearlong free enrollment in a protection program for the dangerous ‘identity theft’ administered by Debix Inc.

More Data Loss Announced By Sony, Additional 24.6M Users at Risk Along With Considerate Credit/Debit Card Information Too

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After the reports of the first vicious data theft faced by Sony Corp. which after a long silence was told to be as big as the data of 77million accounts one the Sony PlayStation Network. Just again recently, on Monday, Sony Corp. has again announced that additional 24.6 million accounts are also to be added to that already huge number. With such unacceptably large number of accounts compromised and detailed information about them leaked, it is highly arguable that if there are even any accounts left with Sony to be hacked yet.

Three Sony High-Ranking Officials Bow Traditionally While Apologizing For Network Security Breach

Sony executives have bowed down publicly, according to their Japanese traditions, in order of showing their great sentiments of apology in the matter of the security breach in the Sony PlayStation Network. This public apology was offered on Sunday, as they also announced that this incident have overall affected a total 77 million users of online service, as their personal data has been stolen to one degree or the other. Furthermore, the apology also included the commitment that the company will be delivering free of cost help services for all of their customers.

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The Chief of the PlayStation Dep. at Sony Corp., Kazuo Hirai, stated publically that "We deeply apologize for the inconvenience we have caused.” Hirai was one of the three executives of Sony Corp. who bowed publically for several seconds on national television from the company's Tokyo headquarters, which is seen as a Japanese tradition to display your deeply apologetic sentiments.

Sony Announces That Its PlayStation Network User Data Was Stolen During the External Intrusion by Hackers

Sony has now eventually declared a warning notice to all its customers during the ‘external intrusion,’ actually its Network was completely hacked and note only data like users’ password, birthday but also additional data has been acquired by the hackers. Almost all the users’ data of its PlayStation Network, which connects PlayStation 3 (PS3) consoles for online-gaming and more, has risks of being stolen.

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On the 20^th of April, Sony suspended its PlayStation Network and Qriocity streaming music service as it claimed it was due to do an "external intrusion," informed by its spokesperson Patrick Seybold. Even though the investigation of such sensitive cyber attack is still under investigation, Sony has revealed the confirmation of very crucial data being stolen, of PlayStation Network and Qriocity service users' names, addresses, birthdates, passwords, and email addresses.

Sony Still Keeps Its PlayStation Network on Hold for Its Rebuilding After the Intrusion

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It has been the sixth day since the PlayStation Network has been kept 

offline; Sony claims to be putting all hands on the deck in order to rebuild the service which connects the PlayStation 3 (PS3) and other console games like PSP, to online gaming, films, and other digital offerings by Sony. PlayStation Network was suspended along with the Qriocity streaming music abruptly on the 20^th of April, 2011 as the company explained that it has faced an "external intrusion."

Patrick Seybold, the spokesperson for Sony wrote in his blog post at the time of suspension of the service that "I know you are waiting for additional information on when PlayStation Network and Qriocity services will be online.” He went on asserting that "Unfortunately, I don't have an update or timeframe to share at this point in time."