Sony has further delayed the relaunch of the PlayStation Network following a security breach which led to the theft of personal data from 100 million online accounts.
The company, which had planned to reopen online services by the weekend, is apparently still busy testing newly installed security measures to ensure that the network is protected against any future attacks.
Speaking in a blog, Sony said: “We were unaware of the extent of the attack on Sony Online Entertainment servers, and we are taking this opportunity to conduct further testing. We won’t restore the services until we can test the system’s strength in these respects.”
Last week, Sony Chief Executive Sir Howard Stringer said that “to date, there is no confirmed evidence any credit card or personal information has been misused, and we continue to monitor the situation closely.”
However, over the weekend Sony admitted that it had found a website containing some 2,500 names and partial mailing addresses of US customers who took part in a completion in 2001.
Sony said that it immediately removed the information and was busy removing any links to the site.
“The website was out-of-date and inactive when discovered as part of the continued attacks on Sony,” it said in a statement.
The embarrassing find follows criticism of Sony taking two days to contact Police about the cyber attack and over a week before it informed gamers of the situation.
CEO Sir Howard has been busy blogging on the company’s website in an attempt to cool tensions, telling gamers that the tech giant is working on new security measures to “protect your information better than ever”.
The company has also offered compensation to US PlayStation Network and Qriocity users in the form of a year-long free identity protection programme, which includes a $1 million (£608,000) identity theft insurance policy for each user against any future cyber-attacks.
Sony has promised that the 32 million videogamers in the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe zone (which includes Australia and New Zealand) will have a free-of-charge pick of two PS3 games from a list of five, as well as offering PSP users the opportunity to choose two games from an unspecified list of four.
