In a recent interview with UK paper  the Guardian, Hirai said that the recent PlayStation Network security breach is a global crisis that "isn’t something that is a Microsoft issue or a Sony issue or limited to one or two companies," but "actually a lot bigger than that." Noting the recent hack attempts against the FBI and Nintendo, Hirai feels that the problem is "large enough to the extent that we're talking about any and all companies, organizations and entities that deal in the online space."

"It's a threat, not just to Sony or a couple of other companies, but to the very fabric of society," he said. "Therefore it requires individuals and companies to be very vigilant, which goes without saying, and we need help from various government, various enforcement agencies and legislation in certain instances as well. And this needs to be a worldwide effort."

Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Sony Network Entertainment International announced that they will "fully restore" all Qriocity by day's end on June 9 in "all serviced territories, excluding Japan." That means that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services which were shut down on April 20 due to a massive security breach are available and working as they were prior to the incident.

SCE says that Video On Demand and Music Unlimited services powered by Qriocity are now "fully functional" on all compatible devices. PlayStation Network has been up for a few weeks in most territories, and last week SCE relaunched the PlayStation Store and gave users access to free games as a "thank you" for their patience.

An announcement related to the restoration of the remaining services on Qriocity in Japan will be made at a later date, said SCE.

Sony Computer Entertainment America has released a brand new firmware update for the PlayStation 3 that adds a new option to the SaveData Utility in the XMB. The firmware, v.365, changes the XMB item SaveData Utility (minis) to [SaveData Utility(minis/PSP)]. It also improves the "operating stability of some PS3 format software."

Sony says this is an optional update (you'll need it if you want to connect to PSN, so it's not really all that optional), but if you own a PSP then you'll want to download it. Basically, When you have a PSP connected to the PS3, you'll gain the ability to copy your PSP save data to the PS3. This will allow you to backup your PSP data, although its availability is dependent on the game.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Sony's Welcome Back program content is now available to PlayStation Network users. For the PlayStation Network and the PlayStation Store being down for nearly a month, Sony is offering consumers an apology in the form of two free games for the PS3 and two free games for the PlayStation Portable. Here's the message Sony posted on its PlayStation blog:

Ligatt Security International's Gregory Evans says that both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live remain vulnerable to cyber attacks and that both companies should consider hiring hackers to test security.

"Most big corporations have what’s called an annual security audit and they go out and hire outside security companies," Ligatt Security International's Gregory Evans told Industry Gamers. "But they’re nothing but a bunch of IT managers who went out and got a bunch of certifications and now they come in to see if your system is truly hacker proof. These IT managers who take the test to become a certified computer hacker or a CISSP (Certified Information System Security Professional) have to work in a lab and hack into a system that’s in a controlled environment."

If you try to log on to the PlayStation Store this morning, you may encounter some technical difficulties. Apparently the massive amounts of traffic slamming the network is spitting out an error message to some users. Sony says that this is entirely due to extremely high traffic volumes and that this should ease up as the day goes on.

"There are so many of you accessing the store at the moment that due to the excessive load, it is a little slow," said SCEA's Nick Caplin. "We are improving it as I write this, so you will see improvements in speed as the day progresses."

This sort of thing is to be expected considering that the store dedicated to PS3 and PSP has been down for well over a month.

Source: Destructoid

Sony Computer Entertainment America has relaunched the PlayStation Store and unleashed a massive update, offering lots of new games, downloadable content, demos, special discounts, and more for both the PSP and PS3. The "Welcome Back" games are not available yet but Sony plans another update to the system on Friday, June 3. The PlayStation Store has been down for over a month so you can expect that - in order to play catch up - SCEA will be releasing a ton of new content over the next two to three weeks.

You can check out all the new content on the PlayStation Blog. The most exciting thing for PS3 fans may be the release of the InFamous 2 demo, which is available now.

We'll let you know when the free games that Sony promised are available. We expect to see them on the PlayStation Store soon.

Sony Japan announced today that the PlayStation Store will be back online sometime this week in most territories. The company said that it will be restarting "full services" for all territories except a few in Asia - Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea. Most other regions will be ready to go by week's end.

“We have been conducting additional testing and further security verification of our commerce functions in order to bring the PlayStation Network completely back online so that our fans can again enjoy the first class entertainment experience they have come to love,” said Kazuo Hirai, Executive Deputy President, Sony Corporation. “We appreciate the patience and support shown during this time.”

The recently relaunched PlayStation Network will outdue the competition when it comes to security, according to Avalanche producer Andreas Thorsen. When asked by C&VG if security was a concern for his studio due to the fact that its latest game (Renegade Ops) is download-only, Thorsen said that he felt confident.

"I haven't really thought about it in that way," said Thorsen. "I think the new system that they bring now will probably be even more secure than the competitors'. I don't think this is something that is unique to the PSN, it's just that this time it happened to them."

"I still have a lot of confidence in them," he continued, before pointing towards the studio's isometric, dual-stick blaster built with the Just Cause 2 engine. "I think PSN is a good target for this kind of game, I don't think it has that many games like this."

Sony announced that PlayStation Network and Qriocity users in the United States can begin the process of enrolling in a 12-month subscription plan for identity theft protection by visiting us.playstation.com. Before announcing the news on the official blog, some PSN users were informed via email. Here's more from the official blog:

Citing a news story in Japanese publication Mainichi Digital, the fine folks at Adriasang report that Sony still plans on relaunching the PlayStation Network and other associated services in the month of May - even as the clock runs out on the month. With the last day of May coming up fast next Tuesday it is still a possibility but a fleeting one.

During its earnings briefing yesterday Sony of Japan said that they have not yet given up on a relaunch in May. Mainichi Digital reports that Sony officials said of the Japanese service, "We have not given up on a May restart."

Nikkei reported last week that Sony was planning to relaunch by the end of the month, but the company has been struggling to deliver information on security requested by the Japanese government and credit card companies.

A survey conducted by GameSpot reveals that consumer confidence in the PlayStation 3, Sony, and the PlayStation Network has not been diminished by the three week downtime of the network that caused a serious breach in security. GameSpot surveyed 2,285 of its members to find out if they planned on sticking with the console. A majority of those users said that they would stick with the PS3, while nine percent said they were jumping ship to Xbox 360.

When asked how the recent security breach impacted how they felt about Sony and the PlayStation Network, 14 percent said that they no longer trust Sony or the PlayStation Network; 35 percent said it had not changed their opinion; 23 percent said that they would trust Sony going forward because the security breach forced the company to add stricter security measures; and 28 percent said that they would change how much information they share with Sony.

Sony announced via its PlayStation Blog today that the network will go down for scheduled maintenance from 1:00 AM - 5:00 PM ET. Obviously, during that time users will not be able access the registration and account management system or the password reset process. But the real story is that the rumored restart of PlayStation Store will not happen today. Sony did say that it should be back online "this month." Considering that t"this month" ends next Tuesday it is likely that the PS Store will be back up by at least week's end. Full message below:

When the PlayStation Network returns members can download two free games, and some developers are concerned that it may affect sales for a little while. One of those developers, Housemarque, also has a title in that list of free games: Dead Nation.

"My biggest concern is whether people will come back to use the system and browse the PlayStation Store," Ilari Kuittinen of Housemarque told Edge. "On top of that, the second issue is that everyone now gets games for free (including our Dead Nation and Super Stardust HD), so people might just play the free games for a while. By the time they are ready to buy something, Outland is maybe old news."

The company recently released its game, Outland, on Xbox Live Arcade and is concerned that sales of the game will be unintentionally impacted by all the free games.

Antivirus and security firm F-Secure said over the weekend that it found a "live" phishing site active on Sony’s servers in Thailand. The malicious site was found on Sony’s official web site for Thailand, running under " hdworld.sony.co.th" and targeting an "Italian credit card company."

From the F-Secure website:

"We know you're not supposed to kick somebody when they're already down… but we just found a live phishing site running on one of Sony's servers.

However, this incident has nothing to do with the Sony PSN hack."

The security firms says that Sony has "been hacked again" but adds that the "server is probably not very important." The company closes by saying that its software has blocked the site for its customers.

F-Secure adds that it has told Sony about the site.

Adriasang is reporting that the PlayStation Network will be back online sometime later this month in Japan. The government had asked the company to provide more assurances that it had better security on its service. PSN users outside of Japan have had access to some of the services since last week.

Delays in Japan were brought on by requests from the government and some credit card companies who wanted more information from Sony. Credit card companies are being hard on Sony because they would be held accountable in the event of card misuse. In America, Sony has insurance to cover that kind of damage.

A leaked memo yesterday revealed that Sony expects to have its PlayStation store back online on or around May 24 (next Tuesday). The company also revealed its planned release schedule, but some publishing partners are not happy about it at all.

According to an Edge report, the news is getting mixed reactions from partners. The biggest complaint is the doubled up weekly release schedule. Developers feel that their games will be buried under a deluge of new content and quickly forgotten as even more content is piled on top in the weeks to follow.

Sony's top executive defends the company's decision to wait a week after its major security breach to inform consumers, and said that it acted swiftly in doing so. Howard Stringer added that most security breaches go unreported to consumers. When companies do inform consumers, he says, it often takes them nearly a month to do so.

"We reported in a week. You are telling me my week wasn't fast enough?," said Stringer.

According to Stringer only 43 percent of companies inform consumers about security breaches. In the United States there are laws that require companies to tell customers about security breaches, and with Sony's high profile situation, you can bet that lawmakers are going to make those laws even tougher.

"This was an unprecedented situation," Stringer said, speaking publicly for the first time since the PSN and Station security breach.

The second most powerful man in British politics says that Sony's massive security breach should be a wake-up call for online services everywhere. Chancellor George Osborne told a London audience yesterday that all online services in the UK need to learn a lesson from the PlayStation Network troubles: security should be the top priority.

"The hacking into Sony’s online PlayStation Network, and the theft of millions of users’ credit card details, is a high profile example of the need for robust online security," Osborne said.

Osborne added that "this age of digitized public services creates challenges alongside opportunities – the challenge of ensuring the security of personal data and financial information."

Sony announced its "Welcome Back appreciation program" for PlayStation Network users, and while some found the free game offerings for PS3 and PSP exciting, many in the community are not happy with the selections. While Sony understands PSN user frustration, the company defended the free baubles it is offering gamers.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's Head of communications Nick Caplin told Eurogamer: "We've tried really hard to put together a list of high quality BD games, rather than simply offering cheaper PSN titles. The average metacritic rating for these games is over 84 percent, so these are high quality games."

PlayStation 3 owners are each entitled to choose two games from a list of five, which includes Dead Nation, inFAMOUS, LittleBigPlanet, Super Stardust HD, and Wipeout HD + Fury. PSP owners choose two games from a list that includes LittleBigPlanet (PSP), ModNation Racers, Pursuit Force, and Killzone Liberation.

Sony has sent out another letter to developer and publisher partners thanking them for their patience and to give them a vote of confidence, saying that they owed them a great deal. The letter, which was published by IndustryGamers, was penned by Rob Dyer, Sony's SVP of Publisher Relations.

While there are plenty of flowery words in the letter, Sony does not detail how (or if) it will compensate its PSN publishing partners who have lost a lot of money in the three weeks the PS3's commerce channel and online multiplayer services went offline.

The full letter, culled from IndustryGamers, can be found below:

Sony announced via its PlayStation Blog details on the games it will offer for free as part of its "Welcome Back appreciation program."

North American PlayStation Network users will get to choose two games from a list of five games, which Sony claims are BD compatible. They are:

-Dead Nation
-inFAMOUS
-LittleBigPlanet
-Super Stardust HD
-Wipeout HD + Fury

These games will be available for 30 days (to download) after the return of the PlayStation Store, which Sony plans to relaunch soon.

PSP owners with a PSN account can download two games from a choice of four, which will also be available for 30 days after the relaunch of the PlayStation Store: They are:

-LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
-ModNation Racers
-Pursuit Force
-Killzone Liberation

A brand new list of frequently asked questions related to the restoration of the PlayStation Network attempts to answer the tough questions PSN users are asking about online events and content that was delayed due to downtime. It also reveals how Sony will rectify short-term content roll-outs on the PlayStation Store to get everything back up to speed.

First thing's first: Sony says that the following services are back online as of this writing:

"PlayStation Network and Qriocity (including the resetting of passwords), online gameplay for PS3 and PSP, playback of rental video content on PS3 (if within rental period), Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity on PS3 (for current subscribers), access to services such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and MLB.tv, “Friends” category on PS3 (including Friends List, Chat Functionality, Trophy Comparison, etc), in-game leaderboards, and PlayStation Home."

In an article in The Australian Queensland University of Technology professor Bill Caelli says that Sony should keep the PlayStation Network and other services that were compromised by hackers in April offline until governments around the world are satisfied that the company has put enough security in place to protect customers.

Caelli, who the publication calls a "security expert," thinks the Japanese government has the right idea in putting Sony's services on hold while it verifies the strength and depth of new security measures.

"Why is it that in the IT industry enterprises certify themselves?" he said, adding that the general public has "no way of assessing the assurances given by the owners of the system themselves."

While the PlayStation Network has launched in North America, Europe and other regions, the relaunch of Sony’s services in Japan has been held up by regulators in Japan. According to a Dow Jones report, the PSN will not be relaunched in Japan until Sony provides assurances to the government that it has added additional security to its network services.

"We met with Sony on May 6 and 13, and basically we want two things from them," said Kazushige Nobutani, director of the Media and Content Industry department at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

"The first is preventative measures. As of May 13, Sony was incomplete in exercising measures that they said they will do on the May 1 press conference," he said, although he refused to provide exact details of the measures for security reasons.

Amazon.com's Web Services were used by hackers in the April attack against Sony’s online entertainment services, according to a Bloomberg report citing a "person with knowledge of the matter."

According to the report, hackers rented a server through Amazon’s EC2 service and launched the attack from that location, according to Bloomberg's source. The source is obviously someone that either knows the hackers that rented the services or an Amazon insider because he or she also said that the account had been shut down.

The development sheds light on how hackers used the so- called cloud to carry out the second-biggest online theft of personal information to date. The incursion, which compromised the personal accounts of more than 100 million Sony customers, was “a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack,” Sony has said.

By the time you read this the PlayStation Network should be back online in most regions in the United States. After three weeks of being offline, the service slowly started going back online after Sony issued a new firmware update to deal with firming up security and allowing users to change their passwords.

The first phase of the network restoration will include online play, video streaming, friends lists, PlayStation Home, and Qriocity. Unfortunately the PlayStation Store is still offline. The v3.61 is mandatory and is available now.

And on a related note Sony Online Entertainment's various online game services are coming back online this weekend as well. From the SOE Site:

Earlier this week Sony sent a letter to developers hoping that it would give them some comfort as they wait for PlayStation Network to come back online. Several developers including Q-Games and Capcom complained about the amount of money they were losing with PlayStation Network being down - now in its third week.

Sadly, the letter doesn't offer any more information than what is already publicly known, nor does it offer a definitive timeline for when the network will be relaunched.

Below is the full text of the letter penned by Rob Dyer, Sony's SVP of Publisher Relations:

According to an Edge report citing multiple sources inside various UK retail chains, consumers are growing tired of the PlayStation Network outage (now in its third week) and are trading their hardware for Xbox 360 systems. The various sources are saying that consumers are trading in PS3 consoles and games for cash or for replacement systems, and that PSN point card sales are on the decline.

"In the first week of downtime we did not really see any major change in sales or trades,” said an unnamed store manager at a major UK retailer. "However from the second week onwards we have seen an increase of over 200 per cent on PS3 consoles being traded in, split almost 50/50 between those trading for cash and those taking a 360 instead.

UK Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said that Sony must make security a priority going forward, but wouldn't say if the government would consider fining the company for its massive security breach that has seen around 100 million PSN users with compromised accounts an without online play for three weeks.

While his words were firm against Sony, the Culture Minister insisted that the government would not interfere with the Information Commissioner’s Office on whether to fine Sony.

"Clearly, as more and more companies move their products online – with more and more customers handing over their details – data protection is going to have to be a number one priority," Vaizey said. "The Information Commission has been given new powers to issue fines where necessary. I know the ICO has been in touch with Sony and clearly this is a huge issue, Sony getting hacked and people’s data being stolen."