Following PSN/Qriocity Presser Few Apologies Given; What’s This $15 In My Pocket?

Starting at 10pm PST this evening, Sony held a press conference with the intention of directly addressing the service outages of PSN and Qriocity, users’ data security, credit card vulnerability, an ETA on when the service will be back online and compensation.

Major highlights of new information from the conference include the following:

• Service will resume in a phased capacity as soon as sometime next week with a full resumption of network services within one month.
• Customers will be offered 30 days of Qriocity and Plus service in addition to a vague suggestion of digital content equaling about $15-$20.
• Prior to the activation of network access, users will be required to update their PS3 systems to a new firmware version and change their PSN account password.
• In certain situations where a customer paid to replace their credit card or has access to identity fraud insurance, depending on the region Sony will take responsibility for the cost of these services.

There were subdued admissions of weakness or inadequate measures taken to prevent their system and thereby users’ data from this kind of attack, but they claim to be committed to beefing up their network and hardware security. During an extended Q&A session following the presentation a few Japanese journalists and industry analysts lobbed softballs at the three member panel, like asking for exact numbers of registered users, credit card accounts, etc. Other than revealing their new strategy for resuming service and attempting to appease their customer base with digital funds, the rest of the conference only re-stated information already reported to the public via the Playstation Blog.

Finally, the topic of the (apparent) individual responsible for the intrusion was brought up multiple times. They confirmed they are working with law enforcement including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, along with two separate private data security firms in order to identify and locate the “hacker”, to use their words. They did reveal the person responsible was very careful to cover their tracks during the intrusion, but with this many groups involved and the resources available them collectively, I’m sure they will find their culprit.

Please continue to check out the news as it develops on our Live Blog and the front page of Nukezilla. It’s midnight here in California and I’m off to bed.