Sony ditches appeal over £250,000 PSN hack fine

Sony has ditched its appeal over the fine it received for the PlayStation Network hack of April 2011.

The UK Information Commissioner's Office fined Sony £250,000 after the hack left millions of customers' information exposed.

Sony said it had dropped its appeal, but maintained ICO's decision was wrong.

"This decision reflects our commitment to protect the confidentiality of our network security from disclosures in the course of the proceeding," Sony said in a statement issued to the BBC.

"We continue to disagree with the decision on the merits."

ICO fined Sony in January 2013 for what it described as a "serious breach of the Data Protection Act".

The ICO's report concluded that the attack "could have been prevented" if Sony's security had been up-to-date.

"If you are responsible for so many payment card details and log-in details then keeping that personal data secure has to be your priority. In this case that just didn't happen," said David Smith, deputy commissioner and director of data protection.

"When the database was targeted - albeit in a determined criminal attack - the security measures in place were simply not good enough.

"There's no disguising that this is a business that should have known better. It is a company that trades on its technical expertise, and there's no doubt in my mind that they had access to both the technical knowledge and the resources to keep this information safe.

"The penalty we've issued today is clearly substantial, but we make no apologies for that. The case is one of the most serious ever reported to us. It directly affected a huge number of consumers, and at the very least put them at risk of identity theft."

In April 2012, a year after the PSN hack, Eurogamer asked: how much did it really cost Sony?