The Sony PlayStation Network Security Breach: A Case Study Report

This report analyzes the significant data breach that occurred on the Sony PlayStation Network in April 2011. The incident involved unauthorized access to Sony's servers, leading to the theft of personal information, including names, addresses, and account login credentials of approximately 77 milli...Read More

Running Head: IT security
SONY PLAYSTATION SECURITY BREACH

IT security
In today’s era of rapid technological
advancement businesses organizations are
heavily relying on the internet to operate
their business successfully. Though using
internet platform for the business provides
them a good competitive edge but it also
exposes them to the risks of cyber-attacks. A
security breach is an incident that occurs
when an unauthorized person or application
enters into a private confidential IT
perimeter by an illegitimate way.
Occurrence of security breaches have
become quite common in today’s digital
world.
One of the major data breach occurred at
Sony in April, 2011 when the company
realized hackers had attacked the data center
located at San Diego by gaining
unauthorized access to Sony’s PlayStation
Network servers with the aim of stealing
customer data. The personal information
such as names, addresses, account login
credentials, birth-dates and online IDs of
around 77 million users had been stolen
from their PlayStations and Qriocity
customer accounts and also from the 24.5
million user accounts of Sony Online
Entertainment. The hackers illegitimately
accessed Sony’s servers at the time when its
servers had hit by denial-of-service attacks
[4].
As a result of attack by the anonymous
hackers, Sony had to shut down its system
for few days. For such period company had
to offer its customers free services for the
shut-down period along with a free
additional month of service as
compensation. Besides this, Sony also had to
bear the cost of providing customer support,
network up-gradation, legal fees and various
other activities. All these expenses had cost
the company over $ 171 million [3].
The breach had affected the company
adversely but it could have been prevented if
IT security was made the integral part of
Sony’s company culture. If the company had

IT security
deployed security software to safeguard the
endpoints, the software and other security
related technology had updated regularly
[2]. Application of more advanced measures
such as network intrusion detection or/and
penetration testing could prevent such a
massive security breach. The corporate
communication must have been encrypted.
However, it is a fact that even the strongest
securities measures could not completely
protect Sony. Therefore it must have
remained proactive to such types of data
vulnerabilities [1]. If the company had
adequate contingency plan put in place in
well-advanced, the impact of the attack
could have been minimized. Also, Sony
notified its customers about the leakage of
their personal information from company’s
server one week later after discovering the
same. The effective risk management
programs could be implemented to reduce
the consequences of the attack.

IT security
References:
[1].Fortune. “Why Sony didn't learn from its 2011 hack”. Available at:
http://fortune.com/2014/12/24/why-sony-didnt-learn-from-its-2011-hack/ [Accessed on:
24.11.2018], 2014.
[2].D. Riedel. “Could the Sony breach have been prevented”? Available at:
https://www.scmagazine.com/home/opinions/could-the-sony-breach-have-been-
prevented/ [Accessed on: 24.11.2018], 2015.
[3].Reuters. “Sony PlayStation suffers massive data”. Available at:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sony-stoldendata/sony-playstation-suffers-massive-
data-breach-idUSTRE73P6WB20110427 [Accessed on: 24.11.2018], 2011.
[4].Tech Target. “FAQ: What is the Sony PlayStation Network security breach's impact”?
Available at: https://searchcompliance.techtarget.com/tutorial/FAQ-What-is-the-Sony-
PlayStation-Network-security-breachs-impact#cost [Accessed on: 24.11.2018], 2011.