Last night at 10 o' clock PST, Kaz Hirai, head of Sony's gaming division addressed the world regarding the ongoing downtime of PSN. He talked about what caused it, what they are doing to fix it and when you can expect PSN to come back up, and some sort of "Please don't hate us" inventive for people when they return to the service. Check out all the details after the break.

Sony started off by saying that the downtime of PSN and the Qriocity service was due to a "criminal cyber-attack" and that they shut down those services in order to protect their user's information and to conduct research on how the hackers got in. Allegedly, the attack was done by the hackers disguising a virus as any old transaction going through the Playstation Store. Once inside, it had breached practically ever firewall that Sony had in place and the hackers gained control of PSN from it. This method of hacking was apparently a known vulnerability to some at Sony, but wasn't known of by management.

Hirai then assured us that, "[Sony] has implemented significant security measures to further detect unauthorized activity and provide consumers with greater protection of their personal information." The means by which Sony is doing this include, but are not limited to:

• Added automated software monitoring and configuration management to help defend against new attacks
• Enhanced levels of data protection and encryption
• Enhanced ability to detect software intrusions within the network, unauthorized access and unusual activity patterns
• Implementation of additional firewalls
• Moving their servers from the current location of San Diego, CA to a different, unnamed, safer location

Not much has been said about compromised information as that is part of an ongoing investigation with authorities, but it was noted that there is no evidence of credit card information being taken and if such a thing happens, Sony has said that they will provide monitoring/insurance programs for their customers. Sony is completely outraged about the entire thing, stating in their press release:

“This criminal act against our network had a significant impact not only on our consumers, but our entire industry. These illegal attacks obviously highlight the widespread problem with cyber-security. We take the security of our consumers’ information very seriously and are committed to helping our consumers protect their personal data. In addition, the organization has worked around the clock to bring these services back online, and are doing so only after we had verified increased levels of security across our networks,” said Kazuo Hirai, Executive Deputy President, Sony Corporation. “Our global audience of PlayStation Network and Qriocity consumers was disrupted. We have learned lessons along the way about the valued relationship with our consumers, and to that end, we will be launching a customer appreciation program for registered consumers as a way of expressing our gratitude for their loyalty during this network downtime, as we work even harder to restore and regain their trust in us and our services.”

Hirai announced that starting "shortly", they will begin to slowly bring up Playstation Network and Qriocity services for people around the world. We can probably expect the United States and Japan to be getting these services back first, with Europe and other nations to follow shortly after. They have stated that they plan to have a "Welcome back" (don't sue us) appreciation program, where they will be giving every member of PSN a free month of Playstation Plus (a month without pay for those of you who already own it), a free download of some sort, and a free month of music streaming via Qriocity.

As for any word on when exactly PSN will be coming back up, it could be within the next week or the next month. We'll keep you updated as to when it does.

[Playstation blog]

[Reddit post]