"Sony says credit card data of PlayStation users may have been stolen in an intrusion that has caused its PlayStation Network to be put out of commission for the last week," the AP just reported.
Earlier today, in a post on the PlayStation blog, Patrick Seybold, of Sony's communications arm, said the hackers might have obtained "name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained."
Seybold encouraged users to be vigilant for signs of identity theft by reviewing account statement and monitoring your credit report.
Wired suggests users also change their passwords if they tend to use the same one on other sites.
Sony has told Wired that Playstation hosts about 70 million accounts. Before Sony announced that the personal data of users might have been exposed, most players were more concerned about missing some game time. After the hack, Sony took the ability to play remotely with other players off line.
As Wired's Game Life reported, yesterday, fans of games like Portal 2, which had only been out one day before the outage began were going through withdrawal:
The fantastic puzzle game, released Tuesday, allows PlayStation 3 players to team up with users of Valve's Steam platform on PC and Mac.
Unfortunately, the cross-platform play was only possible for one day. Once PSN went down, no one could play together — nor could they unlock the free Steam version of Portal 2 that was included with the PlayStation 3 version.
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