Yesterday Sony told Congress they would not be able to show up to answer questions about data security, as they were too busy dealing with, yup, another attack that compromised 12,700 credit card accounts.
The last week and a half has pushed the issue of data management to the front of the national consciousness. The “discovery” that Apple’s iPhone was “tracking” users location raised the biggest outcry, probably because it was simple to understand and affected a wide swath of Americans.
The Sony hack, on the other hand, is more troubling in many ways, but has attracted far less attention outside the gaming community. The company was under attack for six weeks before they announced it to the public, claiming they weren’t certain if any customer data had been obtained as well.
When they finally came clean, with the generous offer of a month of free service, it was only 24 hours before Sony was forced to cop to another breach, this time of their Sony Online Entertainment platform, which hosts popular role playing games like Everquest. Turns out this attack actually came first, Sony just discovered it second.
