Sony Confirms Second Major Data Breach

Just days after a major data breach at Sony's PlayStation network the company has confirmed a second major breach, this time affecting Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) users.

Late Monday Sony confirmed that the names, addresses, emails, birth dates, phone numbers and other personal information from 24.6 million PC games accounts may have been stolen from its servers as well as an "outdated database" from 2007. This database includes approximately 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes), and about 10,700 direct debit records of some customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain.

Sony said SOE was breached between April 16 and 17, the same time PSN and Qriocity was compromised. Sony shut down those services on April 20, but didn’t take SOE offline until May 1.

Combined with the PSN hack a total of approximately 101 Million users have been affected. Sony said it is working with the FBI and continuing its own investigation while working to restore all services. Hopefully with better security!!

Sony reminded users to be aware of scams that ask for personal or sensitive information and that U.S.-based customers can place a free fraud alert with national credit reporting agencies to protect themselves from credit card fraud. However, Equifax, one of the major credit bureaus, warned users that the alerts were not sufficient protection against identity theft.