Sony lost $450 million last year – paid Stringer $4.5 million + stock options
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
Sony PlayStation gamers expressed shock and disappointment on Wednesday at a massive data hack in which their names, addresses and credit-card details might have been stolen from the PlayStation Network.
Shoppers at London video-games stores said they might leave the network, PSN, which allows them to play games with 77 million other members and buy games online, while some gamers writing in online forums called for a boycott of Sony products…
Sony warned earlier that unidentified hackers had stolen the personal details of its 77 million user accounts, in one of the biggest-ever Internet security break-ins.
The Japanese electronics giant advised users, almost 90 percent of whom are based in Europe and the United States, to change any common passwords they also used for other services.
It said children with accounts established by their parents might have had their data exposed.
“If you think the gamers are pissed over at playstation blog, wait until the Mums get wind of this,” wrote senior member barrybarryk on the PS3news.com online forum…
Sony pulled the plug on the network eight days ago but did not tell the public about the stolen data until Tuesday.
Phew! I don’t know of any industry guaranteed safe from attack. I have some experience with procedures that appear to work – when enforced with diligence and consistency. I’m not certain about any IT departments other than those I personally could vouch for, though.
The single biggest mistake is trusting your employees to follow procedures, to never indulge in personal vendettas [har!] and, then, always remember to cut off individual access to computers and the network before anyone is told they’re departing.
Oh yeah – just discussing this with another geek in the family – remember all the crap that’s happened at Sony from the closing of research centers to failed security to snooping on users has happened on Stringer’s watch.
Eideard 