Sony Begins PlayStation System Relaunch

Sony says it has begun to relaunch its PlayStation Network service for the first time since it was hit by hackers in late April. After the attack, the company was forced to take its PlayStation network offline, along with Qriocity and Sony Online Entertainment services.

The relaunch began over the weekend.

Sony's trouble began when hackers penetrated the company's network security and accessed sensitive data. Sony said the hackers got a very complete profile of its 70 million users, including name, full address, country, email, date of birth and PlayStation Network login and password.

At the time, the company said it couldn't rule out the possibility that the hackers also got credit card information, not to mention past purchases and "secret answers" given to Sony for password security.

It's rare that hackers get this much information and most security analysts say it speaks very poorly of Sony that all this data was accessible to the crooks.

As of now Sony PlayStation service is being restored to users in North and South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East. However, it is still down in Japan, not for technical reasons but because the Japanese Government has yet to give the green light.

The Dow Jones News Service quoted a Japanese Economic Ministry official as saying Sony was “incomplete” in setting up new security measured it had promised in the wake of the hack. Sony, however, thinks it's good enough.

"The company has made considerable enhancements to the data security, including updating and adding advanced security technologies; additional software monitoring and penetration and vulnerability testing; and increased levels of encryption and additional firewalls," Sony said in a weekend statement.