PSN hack: Sony defends online security

The PlayStation Network hack that saw personal information tied to 77 million accounts compromised is just the beginning of a "bad new world," Sony has said.

CEO Howard Stringer told the Wall Street Journal he couldn't guarantee the security of Sony's network.

Maintaining security is a "never-ending process" he said. He doesn't know if anyone is "100 per cent secure".

"It's the beginning, unfortunately, or the shape of things to come. It's not a brave new world; it's a bad new world."

Since the hack reports have emerged that cast doubt on Sony's online security.

Yesterday information provided by hacker group Anonymous sparked a report that accused Sony's pre-hack server technology of being "obsolete".

Stringer denied this accusation. "We had no reason to believe that our security was not good and still no reason to believe it because we have plenty of people looking at it.

"We've learned that we just have to keep improving our security."

In the UK the Information Commissioner's Office is in talks with Sony to determine whether it was in breach of the Data Protection Act. If it was, it could be set for a £500,000 fine.

Sony has also suffered criticism for the time it has taken the company to get PSN back online. On Sunday it turned online matchmaking and some other services on after 25 days of outage.

Stringer praised video game boss Kaz Hirai's handling of the crisis, saying he restored online gaming "faster than anyone else would".

"If anything happened in this period that was positive, Kaz demonstrated coolness and leadership and reliability absent of disagreement and dissidence that was very impressive," he said.

Hirai said only "a very small percentage" of the calls to its PlayStation help centres are from customers looking to cancel their accounts.

Responding to criticism from some that Sony took too long to alert its customers to the fact that their personal details may be at risk, Stringer said: "We were trying to find out in a very volatile situation what had happened and when we did we relayed it.

"If your house has been burglarized, you find out if you've lost something before you call the police."

Sony is now attempted to rebuild trust in the PlayStation brand – and convince its customers that buying content through its online services is safe.

"We have to earn back the trust and loyalty we may have lost in this circumstance. That's our goal and that's one we have to reach," Stringer said.

"Our case, unfortunately, is so large and the scale of the PlayStation Network so big that it's forced a lot of attention to be paid.

"In the long run, that'll be good for everybody else but it hasn't been a wonderful experience for Sony."