Has Sony PSN user credit card information been stolen?

One of the more concerning stories relating to the Playstation Network downtime is that Sony have said they have suffered an ‘external intrusion', which we would assume means, they were hacked.

Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold has said “Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure.” What is concerning people however is whether their personal information and credit card data has been stolen, as part of this ‘external intrusion'.

As Kitguru has reported today the PSN is still down, and there seems to be no time frame on when it might be back up and operational. According to PCWorld, members of the Sony public relations team have yet to determine if the personal information or credit card information of customers has been compromised. They said they would warn users immediately if they could determine what information has been stolen in the attack.

While hacking group Anonymous have claimed that they are not targeting the customers but the company themselves, there are fears that personal credit card information could have been stolen.

All of this started with Sony decided to target George Hotz, a hacker who posted the PS3 root key online. Earlier this month, Sony dismissed the suit against Hotz, but not after some high profile media coverage highlighted that Sony might be taking matters a little far. Hotz, goes by the hacker handle of GeoHot, and he has remained highly critical of Sony, even calling for a global boycott of the company.

KitGuru says: It appears that Sony underestimated the capabilities of some of the hacking groups online, but until they release more information no one knows the true extent of the PSN situation.

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