Sony Exec To Speak On PlayStation Security Breach

Sony Corp.'s Executive Deputy President Kazuo Hirai will hold a press conference on Sunday to talk about the recent security breaches of the PlayStation Network. It is the first time a company executive is directly addressing the issue.

The news conference will be at 2 p.m. Japan time (1 a.m. Eastern).

Sony's PlayStation Network was compromised on April 19. The company soon took the network down entirely, in part to defend itself against the hacking attack.

On Tuesday - a week later -- Sony said that names, passwords, and credit card information was taken from the database of 77 million users of the PlayStation Network. Hirai said in an interview with Reuters in December that the PlayStation Network generated some $800 million in revenue in 2010.

Although the company says the credit card information was encrypted, the password and login data would give someone access to the credit card data for the accounts as well. In addition there are reports that the credit card data has appeared on various hacker forums.

Already the company is the subject of a lawsuit for negligence in the way it handled customer data. And there is some speculation that the incident could prompt changes in the regulations that govern how such data is stored and handled.

Additional questions have come from members of Congress and several attorneys general. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut wrote to Sony this week, asking why the company took several days to notify users that their data might have been stolen. He also called for Sony to provide PlayStation Network users with financial data security services.