Sony fined £250,000 after hackers gained access to millions of gamers’ details

Remember the Sony PlayStation Network hack of 2011?

Aside from causing the online gaming service to be taken offline for days as Sony system administrators scrabbled to secure the system, the personal information of millions of users was exposed during the hack attack.

Compromised data included of millions of customers’ names, addresses, email addresses, dates of birth and passwords. Payment card details were also put at risk.

The April attack by hackers against the Sony Playstation Network heralded a series of other (over a dozen!) attacks against Sony websites around the world in the following months.

Today, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that it has issued a £250,000 fine against Sony for breaching the Data Protection Act…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.