The Sony Online Entertainment gaming portal, Station.com, has
been taken offline due to continuing issues due to "an issue that
warrants enough concern" for the outage. This comes hot on the heels of a
series of hacking attacks on SOE leading to user account information
being accessed and other serious issues.

We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily. In the course
of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have
discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the
service down effective immediately. We will provide an update later
today (Monday).

OK，Guys, I think you have heard SOE
hacked. Now The PlayStation Network being down has affected users all
over the world but has possibly been felt the most by DC Universe Online
and Free Realms players. Both of these MMO’s are online only of course
and both have monthly charges to play. Sony Online Entertainment knows
the pain of paying for something you can’t play and they plan to make it
up to players.
In a statement found on the forums for DC Universe Online & Free Realms, SOE said the following:

We apologize for any inconvenience players may have experienced as a
result of the recent service interruption. As a global leader in online
gaming, SOE is committed to delivering stable and entertaining games for
players of all ages.
To thank players for their patience, we will
be hosting special events this weekend across our game portfolio,
including a Double Station Cash day on Saturday, April 30th.

We
are also working on a “make good” plan for players of the PS3 versions
of DC Universe Online and Free Realms. Details will be available soon on
the individual game websites and forums.

No word yet on what
people can expect from this “make good” plan that SOE has but we are
sure they will do their best to take care of people. While it is not
their fault for the PSN being down, it is still a classy move to try and
help out where they can.

If you are a subscriber to either game, let us know in the comments what you think Sony Online Entertainment should do.

SO, how do you think? Most people will just only blame Sony, what’s your opinion?

As we previously reported,
all Sony Online Entertainment services, games, forums and web sites
went offline this morning as a result of the recent Playstation Network
intrusion. SOE just issued an announcement, and it appears that the personal information of players may have been compromised. Here are the details straight from SOE:

"Our ongoing investigation of illegal intrusions into Sony Online
Entertainment systems has discovered that hackers may have obtained
personal customer information from SOE systems. We are today advising
you that the personal information you provided us in connection with
your SOE account may have been stolen in a cyber-attack. Stolen
information includes, to the extent you provided it to us, the
following: name, address (city, state, zip, country), email address,
gender, birthdate, phone number, login name and hashed password."

SOE goes on to state that there is no evidence that their main
credit card database was compromised. However, SOE is warning customers
outside of the United States that credit and debit card information
from an outdated database from 2007 may have been obtained. Affected
customers will be notified.
SOE warns players to "be especially aware of email, telephone, and
postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information." SOE
isn't going to contact you asking for personally identifiable
information like your credit card number, so keep that in mind.
So when will the SOE game services be back? "As soon as possible." You can read the full notice after the jump.
UPDATE: As for compensation, according to the separate press release,
"SOE will grant customers 30 days of additional time on their
subscriptions, in addition to compensating them one day for each day
the system is down. It is also in the process of outlining a 'make
good' plan for its PlayStation 3 MMOs (DC Universe Online and Free
Realms). More information will be released this week."

---

Customer Service Notification

May 2, 2011
Dear Valued Sony Online Entertainment Customer:
Our ongoing investigation of illegal intrusions into Sony Online
Entertainment systems has discovered that hackers may have obtained
personal customer information from SOE systems. We are today advising
you that the personal information you provided us in connection with
your SOE account may have been stolen in a cyber-attack. Stolen
information includes, to the extent you provided it to us, the
following: name, address (city, state, zip, country), email address,
gender, birthdate, phone number, login name and hashed password.

Customers outside the United States should be advised that we further
discovered evidence that information from an outdated database from
2007 containing approximately 12,700 non-US customer credit or debit
card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes)
and about 10,700 direct debit records listing bank account numbers of
certain customers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Spain may have
also been obtained - we will be notifying each of those customers
promptly.
There is no evidence that our main credit card database was
compromised. It is in a completely separate and secured environment.
We had previously believed that SOE customer data had not been
obtained in the cyber-attacks on the company, but on May 1st we
concluded that SOE account information may have been stolen and we are
notifying you as soon as possible.
We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the attack and as a result, we have:
1) Temporarily turned off all SOE game services;
2) Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and
3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen
our network infrastructure to provide you with greater protection of
your personal information.
We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as
we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and
efficiently as practicable.
For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of
email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or
sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including
by email, asking for your credit card number, social security number
or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for
this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking.
When SOE's services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that
you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your
Station or SOE game account name or password for other unrelated
services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them, as
well.
To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss,
we encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements
and to monitor your credit reports. We are providing the following
information for those who wish to consider it:

U.S.
residents are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report
annually from each of the three major credit bureaus. To order your
free credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call toll-free (877) 322-8228.
We have also provided names and contact information for the three
major U.S. credit bureaus below. At no charge, U.S. residents can
have these credit bureaus place a "fraud alert" on your file that
alerts creditors to take additional steps to verify your identity prior
to granting credit in your name. This service can make it more
difficult for someone to get credit in your name. Note, however, that
because it tells creditors to follow certain procedures to protect
you, it also may delay your ability to obtain credit while the agency
verifies your identity. As soon as one credit bureau confirms your
fraud alert, the others are notified to place fraud alerts on your file.
Should you wish to place a fraud alert, or should you have any
questions regarding your credit report, please contact any one of the
agencies listed below.
Experian: 888-397-3742; www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
Equifax: 800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
TransUnion: 800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790
You may wish to visit the web site of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission at www.consumer.gov/idtheft
or reach the FTC at 1-877-382-4357 or 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW,
Washington, DC 20580 for further information about how to protect
yourself from identity theft. Your state Attorney General may also
have advice on preventing identity theft, and you should report
instances of known or suspected identity theft to law enforcement, your
State Attorney General, and the FTC. For North Carolina
residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 9001 Mail Service
Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-9001; telephone (877) 566-7226; or www.ncdoj.gov.
For Maryland residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at
200 St. Paul Place, 16th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202; telephone: (888)
743-0023; or www.oag.state.md.us.
We are committed to helping our customers protect their personal
data and we will provide a complimentary offering to assist users in
enrolling in identity theft protection services and/or similar
programs. The implementation will be at a local level and further
details will be made available shortly in regions in which such
programs are commonly utilized.
We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of
this incident, and we regret any inconvenience. Our teams are working
around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as
possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will
continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to
protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and
secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority.
Please contact us at 1 (866) 436-6698 should you have any additional
questions.
Sincerely,
Sony Online Entertainment LLC

This is worrying, if they can break through PSN and then SOE then it must be an act of another company. It's unlikely for a sole or a small group of hackers to do this kind of thing lol.

or the act of another country ^^

While we all wait for the Sony Online Entertainment services to come back online following an attack on the network, SOE posted a brief FAQ
today to keep players updated on the situation. While they don't
provide any new details, SOE has said it will continue to post updates
to the site with new information as it becomes available.
According to the FAQ,
some games and services are expected to be up and running "soon." SOE
emphasizes that the services will only be restored once the network is
secure. SOE spokewoman Taina Rodriguez told The San Diego Union-Tribune
that the network will be shut down until Friday and possibly longer, so
it certainly looks like players should remain patient during this
downtime.
You can read the current FAQ after the jump. As a reminder, SOE has confirmed that hackers may have obtained personal information
from SOE systems, so be wary of any phishing scams that you may receive
through e-mail. SOE will be granting customers 30 days of additional
time on their subscriptions, in addition to compensating them one
day for each day the system is down.

---

Recent Updates - May 4, 2011

When will SOE's services be back online?
We have been working around the clock to restore operations as
quickly as possible, and we expect to have some of our games and
services up and running soon. However, we want to be very clear that
we will only restore operations when we believe that the network is
secure.
How is the SOE intrusion related to the PSN/Qriocity intrusion? Was this a second attack on SOE?
While the two systems are distinct and operated separately, given
that they are both under the Sony umbrella, there is some degree of
overlap in design. The attacks were similar in nature. This is NOT a
second attack; new information has been discovered as part of our
ongoing investigation into the criminal attack in April.
How is SOE planning to notify customers whose data may have been stolen?
We are sending out customer service notification emails to the
email addresses we have on file for the accounts that were affected.
These emails will be sent by Innovyx, our third party email
distributor, and contained either 'soe.innovyx.net' or 'soe.sony.com'
in the sender field.
SOE initially thought no data was extracted, what changed?
Essentially the perpetrators used sophisticated means not only to
access the data, but also to cover their tracks. We committed to
continue the investigation and in doing so, uncovered further
information that we did not have when we initially believed the data was
not stolen.