Nowhere to hide
Sony's continuing battle with security breaches, which has to date cost the company an estimated £100m, and caused as yet untold damage to its reputation, still isn't over. Sony Ericsson's Canadian website has found itself the latest to be breached by hackers; once again customer data has been stolen.
This particular breach saw the loss of over 2,000 names and email addresses, making it less severe than the PlayStation Network attack, where customer credit card data was obtained. This website, - in addition to those in Greece, Indonesia and Thailand, which have also been affected by security attacks - was not hosted by Sony, says the company, so these breaches should not be taken of indicative of Sony's own security measures.
Regardless where these websites are hosted, however, it is clear that the PlayStation Network attack has brought the entirety of Sony's online operations to the attentions of hackers looking to exploit any vulnerabilities in Sony's defences.
Sony CEO Howard Stringer may have described the PSN breach as a 'hiccup' in Sony's security record, but it's fast becoming an epidemic. So far only the PSN attack has caused financial damage to Sony, but with news of further sites being hacked almost daily, it's possible Sony's woes aren't over yet.
Sony has, for now, shut down all of the websites it's found to be affected by security breaches, while it investigates further to determine both the nature of the attacks, and whether they are related to each other, or the previous PSN breach.
