Sony’s PC games site closed over further security concern
Sony shut down its website for online PC games on Monday, almost two weeks after it closed the PlayStation Network following a criminal intrusion that stole personally identifiable information from 77 million account holders.
The move by Sony Online Entertainment affects online playing of games such as Everquest, Dungeon Overlord, and Free Realms, and comes a day after Sony’s CEO said the company expects to return some PSN offerings later this week. The sudden and drastic step so late in the company’s cleanup efforts is the latest sign that the penetration went deep into the company’s systems.
“We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily,” a message on the homepage of Station.com read at time of writing. “In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately. We will provide an update later today (Monday).”
The temporary closure follows statements Sony reportedly made last week when the company warned the SOE servers were affected by the security breach but that no customer information was exposed. The SOE and PSN are believed to run on separate systems, although both are located in San Diego, California.