Sony suffers after hackers strike again
JUST one day after admitting a 260bn yen (£2bn) loss for the year, Japanese electronics giant Sony yesterday revealed a fresh online security breach – this time for 2,000 customers of its Sony Ericsson joint venture in Canada.
Sony spokesperson Atsuo Omagari said that names, e-mail and encrypted passwords may have been stolen from the Sony Ericsson Canada website, but no credit card information was taken.
The eShop website, a partnership between Sony and Sweden’s Ericsson to promote their products, has been shut down.
The breach is the latest in a series of hacker attacks against the electronics and entertainment company, which last month saw the account information of more than 100m customers compromised in cyber attacks on its networks.
On Tuesday, Sony said that its customers in Thailand and Indonesia had also had their personal information targeted.
Earlier this year, Sony attracted the attention of Anonymous, a group of activist computer hackers, following a lawsuit by the company against a hacker who modified his PlayStation game console.
However, Anonymous has denied responsibility for the attacks and Sony itself has said it does not believe it is directly involved in the attacks.
In its first estimate for the year to March 2012, Sony said operating profit would come in around 200bn yen.
Sony expects to report a net loss of 260bn for the year ended 31 March, its third straight annual net loss, after writing off tax credits following Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami. Analysts said Sony had provided markets with a realistic view of the impact of the quake and the PlayStation network hacking, both of which had weighed on the shares.