News: Sony's Response to U.S. Congress Inquiry on the PSN Mishap

Friday last week, the U.S. House of Representatives issued a letter to SCEA's Chairman Kazuo Hirai, seeking answers with regard to the PSN security breach. Though most of the questions were already answered in earlier announcements and press releases, Kaz Hirai responded with an eight-page letter detailing what has transpired, and possibly a lead as to who was behind the attack.



The letter starts out mentioning their principles in handling the attack. Sony also mentions that they are also a victim of a carefully planned and professional cyber attack. Sony then reiterates that they have been carefully investigating the situation until now, and that the delay in announcing that user account information was breached was because they had to ascertain facts before making any conclusions.

According to the letter, one peculiar finding of their investigation is that they discovered a file implanted in Sony Online Entertainment's servers, which was also hacked in the same time span. The file was named "Anonymous" with the words "We are Legion". Sony states that they have been a victim of Anonymous in past denial of service attacks.

The letter answers the questions of the House of Representatives, and provided a detailed account of their investigation. As to whether credit account information was stolen, their ongoing investigation does not yet conclude that the said information was transferred / stolen. They also stated the changes and security upgrades that they will implement to prevent future breaches. Finally, they also mentioned of the "Welcome Back" program and complementary offerings in order to compensate the millions of PSN users affected by the attack.

What's interesting is Hirai's insight that it's possible that either Anonymous may have been behind an attack, or another hacker was responsible, and Anonymous was duped to provide cover. But so far, there are still no concrete evidence pointing as to who exactly was behind the attack.

To read the full letter, click here, and here's Patrick Seybold's summary as well. I don't mind going offline for awhile, I just hope that the damage can still be repaired, and the culprits be caught.