PlayStation, Qriocity to be re-activated Saturday
TOKYO — Sony announced on Friday that it will restore its PlayStation Network online game and Qriocity music and pic streaming services throughout much of Asia on Saturday, more than a month after a hack attack forced a shutdown.The services will be back up and running in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand on May 28, with only Korea and Hong Kong still left in limbo. Sony has been beefing up its data security measures, including stronger firewall and password protection, as well as instituting more thorough monitoring to spot any suspicious hacker-like behavior. A week after discovering an intrusion into the PlayStation Network and Qriocity databases in mid-April, Sony shuttered both services on April 21, Japan time. The company later found that various breaches had exposed the data of nearly 100 million users, though it has yet to turn up evidence that credit card details were swiped. Sony has also not yet unmasked the hackers or puzzled out their motives. The two services have already been brought back online in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand. “We deeply apologize for the tremendous worry and inconvenience we caused our customers in Japan and the Asian region by the long stoppage of service, and by the possible leak of personal data from the unauthorized access,” Sony veep Kaz Hirai said in a statement. Sony will give those customers freebies by way of apology, including PlayStation 3 and PlayStation games, and 30 days of additional access to the PlayStation Plus service package for registered users. The whole cost of the fiasco for Sony is expected to top $170 million this fiscal year.