The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released new guidelines on Thursday that require publicly traded companies to disclose when they are the victim of a security breach or cyber attack. The new guidelines are the result of members of congress pressuring the watchdog agency to add them following several major cyber attacks earlier this year. Senator John Rockefeller is one of those lawmakers.

Last night Sony's new SVP & Chief Information Security Officer, Philip Reitinger wrote a lengthy post on the official PlayStation Blog, detailing some questionable mass logins. While some of those attempts to login to accounts by unknown persons were successful, Reitinger assures the public that those accounts have been identified by the company and temporarily locked down.

Yesterday we reported that Sony Computer Entertainment America planned to use its PSN Online Pass scheme for Resistance 3, which would effectively charge used game buyers $10 to play the multiplayer portion of the game. It turns out this is not an isolated incident but Sony's new modus operandi when it comes to used games that contain a multiplayer component.

Sony will be rolling out its PSN Pass for the multiplayer aspects of its upcoming game Uncharted 3. As it did earlier this year with Resistance 3, Sony will implement a "PSN Pass" code on Uncharted 3. This means that when you buy a copy of the game brand new at retail it will come with a special code specifically for multiplayer that you will have to activate the first time you play online. Should you sell the game the next person that buys it will have to turn around and pay $10 to get access to multiplayer.

Sony did not break Australia’s Privacy Act during the PlayStation Network cyber attack, ruled Australia's Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim. Pilgrim’s report, released today, said that the Commission found "no evidence that Sony intentionally disclosed any personal information to a third party." Pilgrim said that he was satisfied that Sony Australia took reasonable steps to protect its customers’ personal information, including encrypting credit card information and ensuring appropriate security measures were in place.

You may think the unprecedented and massive security breach that took down multiple Sony services including Sony Online entertainment and PlayStation Network is what pushed Sony to make the changes it did recently to the PSN Terms of Service, but a CNN report points to another reason: The Supreme Court. Last week Sony changed the document for PlayStation Network asking customers to give up their rights to file class-action lawsuits against the company and its partners.

A GiantBomb report claims that, even though you may have agreed to the new PlayStation Network Terms of Service recently, there may still be an option to allow an opt-out. In a nutshell, the new ToS asks users to agree to not sue the company as part of a class action, and requires that you agree to it to gain entry to the network. The paragraph in question from section #15 of the ToS:

A little public service announcement for all PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable users that play games over the PlayStation Network in Europe: on Sunday, between the hours of 5am and 12pm British Standard time select PS3/PSP titles will go offline for maintenance.

Sony also noted that users may experience "some additional downtime after the maintenance for testing purposes."

During that time the following games (and associated websites) will not be playable over PlayStation Network:

An interactive entertainment lawyer tells GameIndustry.biz that the new wording in the PlayStation Network terms of service is geared more towards consumers in the United States and is probably not enforceable in the United Kingdom due to existing laws that prevent such contracts.

In case you've forgotten it from yesterday, here's what paragraph 15 of the PSN terms of service states:

If you are a member of Sony's PlayStation Network, chances are you were greeted with an email from the company this morning telling you that that the terms of service for the network are about to change. The big change, in case you haven't received that email yet, relates to your ability to sue them. From section 15 comes this wonderful new clause:

Sony is claiming that it may have a solution for PSP UMD game owners as it relates to using them on your spiffy new PlayStation Vita when it is released sometime in March of next year. Sony is considering some kind of special program to offer special download versions of games consumers own on UMD as replacements, according to Destructoid.

Sony has hired a heavyweight in its ongoing fight to protect its online game services from hackers. The company has hired Philip Reitinger, former director of the U.S. National Cyber Security Center, as its new chief information security officer.

Sony says this week that, following one of the worst security breaches in recent memory for any company, that sales via its online gaming service are exceeding numbers from before the attack occurred.

As part of a Sony conference at the IFA electronics show, Sony CEO Howard Stringer said that the PlayStation Network has recovered and is now doing better than ever, with 3 million new customers since coming back online earlier this year.

London's theater world is apparently about to get a taste of video game culture thanks to Sony, Resistance 3 and London theater group Punchdrunk. Running September 1, through Sunday, Punchdrunk performs "…And Darkness Descended," an "interactive theater experience based on the game Resistance 3, where participants must survive, by cooperating against alien invaders (or not cooperating, as the case may be). Punchdrunk is keen on performing in a way that encourages lots of audience participation and this particular performance should be no exception.

Speaking at the recent Edinburgh Interactive conference, Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard said that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo all opposed the idea of the company's MMO Runescape letting players interact with other players on rival platforms.

"Some console owners wanted us to charge five Euros for Runescape. What? It would be crazy to charge for Runescape on consoles," he said. "But Sony was ahead of the game, they said they get it. They understand free. But all three said, 'okay, but, we won’t let our console play online with any other'."

Sony Computer Entertainment announced that it will cut the price of its PlayStation 3 console by $50. The company, who made the announcement at Gamescom in cologne, Germany, said that the 160 GB model will now sell for $249, while the 320 GB model would sell for $299. The price cut is global and takes effect immediately.

At the annual Black Hat hacker convention that happened in Las Vegas this week Sony earned a dubious distinction of the security breach that took several of its services down for nearly two months. The awards are called "Pwnies" and - unless you are a hacker - you don’t want to be "honored" with on. Sony earned the "Most Epic Fail" award for the massive security breach that brought down the PlayStation Network and related services for nearly two months earlier this year.

Youness Alaoui, known better by his online persona "KaKaRoTo" and for being the first man to develop modified firmware for the PS3, sits down for an interview with PlayStation LifeStyle to talk about the PS3, piracy, black hat hackers, and whether Sony owns its system or consumers do. Alaoui, who describes himself as a software engineer of Moroccan origin currently living in Canada, says that his passions are programming and open source development, which he has been doing for over 10 years.

It may have taken longer than expected but Sony's various services related to the PlayStation 3 are back online all over the world. As part of an apology by the company, it offered a number of free games to PSN members such as Infamous, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Nation and WipEout through a "Welcome Back" program. Sony will be delighted to hear that the program has been called a resounding success by research firm EEDAR.

EEDAR, referencing IGN GamerMetrics data, said that all four Welcome Back titles were in the top 25 of consumer reported title acquisitions in June 2011. Additionally 17 percent of IGN users indicated that they acquired a PSN digital title in June 2011, up from 13 percent in March 2011 before Sony had to take down PSN.

But the most interesting data point in the report indicates that the Welcome Back program may have boosted PS3 game sales as well. From the report:

Sony has decided to extended its offer of free identity theft protection for PlayStation Network users in North America. The company announced that it is extending the AllClear ID Plus Identity Theft Protection program at no cost until the end of July. This protection will expire approximately one year after the user has registered for the program.

Apparently some users have been slow to sign up for it, or Sony is simply extending the program opt-in out of courtesy to its PSN users. The company offered the plan after the PlayStation Network came back online - two and half months after hackers breached security and forced the company to take its services down to make them more secure.

Sony is expected to announce AllClear ID Plus protection for users in Canada and Latin America sometime soon.

Source: Digital Spy

Sony announced that it will have "full PlayStation Network services" in Japan sometime this week. This will bring all of its services online in the region nearly two and a half months after being attacked by hackers. Later this week Sony hopes to have its PlayStation Store back online, allowing Japanese PlayStation Network users access to its games marketplace and online music.

The attack on Sony’s data centers in San Diego compromised more than 100 million customer accounts and will cost an estimated 14 billion yen ($173 million) for the company this fiscal year.

Most of the delay in Japan was due to a Japanese government request in May to institute "preventive measures against data breaches," and to ease customer worries over having their information stolen. Apparently Sony has finally satisfied these requests, as well as requests from credit card companies who were seeking details on its new security measures.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer took a 16 percent pay cut last year, the company announced at its shareholder meeting on Tuesday. Sony said that Stringer's salary and bonuses fell to right around 345 million yen, or roughly $4,268,807 (according to currency conversion site XE.com). Earlier in the week shareholders asked Stringer to resign from his post as CEO. Obviously Sony and Stringer are not entertaining that idea at all.

The shareholder anger is directly related to the security breach in April, Sony's handling of the situation, and the inevitable price tag, which the company estimates at $14 billion yen.

Stringer tried to console investors by saying that since the PlayStation Network came back online, around 90 percent of its subscribers have returned and he apologized for how the company dealt with the security breach.

Source: BBC

Sony of Japan has issued a small statement on the continued downtime of the PlayStation Network and its Qriocity services in Japan. The company had said that it would relaunch both at the end of last month, but that never happened. Sony's new statement offers Japanese players apologies for the long wait and that it needs more time "to make adjustments with the various related parties." The company offers no timeline for when these services will return as it attempts to appease customers, the Japanese government and credit card companies.

The hold-up relates mostly to Sony meeting the strict demands of the government and credit card companies. So far it has not managed to convince either that everything is safe and secure. Further, the government wants Sony to explain how it will give customers confidence again that its services are safe.

A new lawsuit filed in federal court in San Diego on Monday (Cotorreal et al v. Sony Corporation Inc.) alleges that Sony's security breach of Sony Online Entertainment and PlayStation Network were the direct result of layoffs earlier in the month of April. In late April the company laid off around 205 employees from its MMO company SOE, closing down offices in Denver, Seattle and Tucson. These layoffs also affected the company's Network Operations Centre. The complaint alleges that Sony did not mention that any of these employees were part of "network operations" at the time of the layoffs.

The complaint also alleges that Sony rushed to protect data when it first learned of the security breach - but it wasn't user data they were concerned about. The company paid millions to secure sensitive corporate secrets, not offering the same level of action for customer data, the complaint contends.

VG247 offers an interesting interview with a member of Anonymous, the hacktivist group that is best known for bringing down government, corporations, and the Church of Scientology websites. He says that it is no longer attacking Sony, but the unknown soldier in the army of Anonymous says that PSN users acted "selfish" and "butthurt" over the lengthy PlayStation Network outage.

VG247 put out the word on Twitter that it would like to speak to a member of Anonymous. One person replied, but said he wouldn't speak for the organization as a whole.

When asked about the recent Lulsec operations, the Anon said:

You may recall that late last week Spanish Police arrested three men that they claimed were connected to hacktivist group Anonymous. The police alleged that the trio were responsible for  hacking various web sites associated with Sony, BBVA and Bankia, ENEL, and the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia, and New Zealand.

At the time the group's official Twitter account offered an ominous message to law enforcement: "expect us." And so they came and went. The hackers managed to keep www.policia.es offline for about an hour from 2130 GMT on 12 June.

According to a New York Times report, Spanish police have arrested three men they claim were involved in hacking Sony's PlayStation Network and the PlayStation Store. Police also claim that the trio are part of the hacktivist group Anonymous. The three men were released on their own recognizance pending formal charges but are expected to be charged with "forming an illegal association to attack public and corporate Web sites," which carries a maximum sentence of up to three years.

The official Twitter feed for the hacktivist group does provide some confirmation that the three are somehow connected to the group:

In a recent interview with GameSpot, Sega's executive vice president of marketing Alan Pritchard talked about used games, the PlayStation Network security breach, and Aliens: Colonial Marines. The more interesting topics relate to Sony's security woes and what the Sega representative thinks about the effects of the used games market.

On the topic of how the PSN security breach affected Sega financially, Pritchard said:

"I don't think we can allow it to affect our relationship, regardless of what we think (laughs). We need to work with Sony. And we do have a good relationship with Sony. It has affected us because if it's down, we can't sell games. Sega's rapport with Sony remains unchanged following the PlayStation Network outage."

When asked about a specific monetary figure Pritchard declined to answer:

It's E3 week and that means that top executives make the rounds to as many media outlets as possible. Sony's Kaz Hirai is no exception, speaking to a number of publications in North America and Europe this week. In an interview with the BBC, Hirai admits that Sony has not been able to catch whoever breached the PlayStation Network's security in late April, and it is not exactly sure what they might have taken. All they really know is that they accessed user data and took some of it.

In a recent interview with UK paper  the Guardian, Hirai said that the recent PlayStation Network security breach is a global crisis that "isn’t something that is a Microsoft issue or a Sony issue or limited to one or two companies," but "actually a lot bigger than that." Noting the recent hack attempts against the FBI and Nintendo, Hirai feels that the problem is "large enough to the extent that we're talking about any and all companies, organizations and entities that deal in the online space."

"It's a threat, not just to Sony or a couple of other companies, but to the very fabric of society," he said. "Therefore it requires individuals and companies to be very vigilant, which goes without saying, and we need help from various government, various enforcement agencies and legislation in certain instances as well. And this needs to be a worldwide effort."