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Kazuo Hirai, president and group CEO of SCE presents the new PSP during the Sony Computer Entertainment press Conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), in Los Angeles, California, on June 6, 2011. (Valerie Macon/Getty Images)
Sony delayed revealing the full details of the massive attack against its PlayStation Network, then only said that some users’ data was leaked, according to a government document obtained by Kyodo News.
Citing the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry document, Kyodo reports that Sony might have deliberately attempted to downplay how serious the situation is and intentionally withheld information.
The report said that Sony president Kazuo Hirai gave false information in a statement issued on May 1, saying that Sony did not learn about the full seriousness of the attack until April 26. However, the documentation said that Sony was fully aware of the attack on April 25.
In the report, Sony said that by April 25, it confirmed that a “fairly large amount of data” was compromised during the attacks.
At the time, some users complained that Sony was taking too long in informing them that their personal data may have been at risk.
In a press release issued at the time, Sony said that it purposely delayed disclosing the information because it did not want to create unnecessary confusion among users.
More than 100 million accounts were compromised in the attack on the Network and Sony was forced to take it down for more than a month.
"We hadn’t figured out (at that time) what kind of data had been leaked," a Sony spokesman told Kyodo. "If only passwords and IDs (were breached), they cannot be considered personal information, and so we didn’t want to bewilder our customers."Kyodo said that it obtained the document by filing a freedom of information request with the ministry.
