PlayStation Network Data Leakage:
One of the Largest Data Security Breaches in History
Heng Sue Chin
2012551219
The University of Hong Kong
Author Note,
This paper was prepared for CCST9029 Cyberspace Crime: Technology and Ethics, taught by Dr. K.P. Chow, tutored by Ms. Vivien Chan.
PLAYSTATION NETWORK DATA LEAKAGE 2
Abstract
PlayStation Network, known as PSN, is a free online platform for users to play and buy online games, interact with friends and family and surf the net provided by Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. On 19th April 2011, PSN was struck by hacker and this resulted in an outage of PSN. It was believed that approximately 77 million users’ personal information was stolen by hacker. This case is highlighted because it vividly depicts the issue of data leakage and its effect to the users. I will firstly discuss how PSN works and how it was hacked under technical analysis. Next, I will touch on some legal issues which Sony violated in certain countries and some analysis on different countries’ lawsuit against Sony. Lastly, I will analyze the ethical issues pertaining to this case.
PLAYSTATION NETWORK DATA LEAKAGE 3
PlayStation Network Data Leakage:
One of the Largest Data Security Breaches in History
PSN is a unified online gaming service provided by Sony Computer Entertainment to be used with its video game consoles. In the early stage, Sony did not provide any unified online service for its users. There was no support for network features and no interoperability between games. Then, PSN was created and it served as a free online platform for users to play and buy online games; interact with friends and family from all around the world; and surf the internet. On 19th April 2011, users of PlayStation found out that PSN services were down. What caused this outage? Sony claimed that the outage was due to an “external
References: Agnello A. J. (2012, October 23). Lawsuit Against Sony Over The Great PlayStation Network Hack of 2011 Arthur, C., Stuart, K. (2011, April 27). PlayStation Network users fear identity theft after major data leak Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. (2009). Introduction and PCI Data Security Standard Overview