Sony said today most PlayStation Network services are working now. For real, this time.

On Saturday, Sony announced that after almost four weeks its entire portfolio of online games, game forums, and Web sites would go back online. After service resumed in the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East, however, heavy traffic on the network caused it to be inaccessible again. Sony said it had to "turn the service off for 30 minutes in order to clear the queue" of too many password resets submitted at once.

But today most things are back to normal, said Sony Social Media Manager Jeff Rubenstein in a blog post. That includes signing in to PSN and Qriocity, the ability to reset passwords, playing online with the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable, and watching unexpired video rentals.

Third-party services like Vudu, Hulu Plus, MLB.TV, and Netflix are accessible now, as well as Friends Lists, chat, trophies, in-game leaderboards, and PlayStation Home.
For those still waiting to receive their new passwords following the reset, Rubenstein asked customers to be patient.

"Please note that the very large number of requests has caused certain ISPs to slow the rate at which recipients get emails from us. Please be patient as the systems work through the backlog," he wrote.

The service had been offline for nearly four weeks after several of Sony's servers were attacked between April 17 and April 19, leading to the exposure of the personal data of more than 100 million customers who signed up for PlayStation Network, Qriocity, and Sony Online. The company has said repeatedly that there is no evidence that credit card information was stolen.
Sony said today that games that were scheduled to be released on PSN during the four-week period that the network was inaccessible will eventually be added. Instead of once per week as usual, Sony says it will post new games "multiple times per week" to catch up on the backlog of unreleased games once the PlayStation Store is back online. Sony has said previously it expects that to return by May 31.

The company had announced on May 5 a free identity theft monitoring program for customers, and said today that specific details of how to enroll are still forthcoming.

And in addition to free content from Sony as compensation for PSN and Qriocity customers, the company said it is also working with the game makers behind popular titles SOCOM 4 and Call of Duty to offer in-game bonuses as compensation.

Rubenstein did not mention when Sony's home country of Japan and other Asian countries will resume PSN service.

Now that some PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have been restored and you’re once again enjoying online gaming and entertainment, we’re happy to provide details about the “Welcome Back” appreciation program for customers in North America. We developed the program as an expression of our gratitude for your patience, support and continued loyalty during the service outage. From all of us at PlayStation, thank you and welcome back!

This package will be made available to all existing registered PlayStation Network and Qriocity users in North America (US and Canada), and will be made available shortly after we have fully restored the service. More specific details about these offers and eligibility requirements will be posted as the services go live.

All PlayStation Network customers can select two PS3 games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

Dead Nation
inFAMOUS
LittleBigPlanet
Super Stardust HD
Wipeout HD + Fury

For PSP owners, you will be eligible to download two PSP games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
ModNation Racers
Pursuit Force
Killzone Liberation

A selection of “On Us” rental movie titles will be available to PlayStation Network customers over one weekend, where Video Service is available. Those titles will be announced soon.
30 days free PlayStation Plus membership for non PlayStation Plus subscribers.
Existing PlayStation Plus subscribers will receive an additional 60 days of free subscription.
Existing Music Unlimited Premium Trial subscription members will receive an additional 30 days of free premium subscription.
Additional 30 days + time lost for existing members of Music Unlimited Premium/Basic subscription free of charge for existing Premium/Basic members.
To welcome users Home, PlayStation Home will be offering 100 free virtual items. Additional free content will be released soon, including the next addition to the Home Mansion personal space, and Ooblag’s Alien Casino, an exclusive game.

We’d like to thank all of our publishing and development partners who’ve contributed to the Welcome Back program, including Bigbig Studios, Codeglue, Digital Leisure, Guerilla Games, Heavy Water, Housemarque, Lockwood, Loot, Mass Media, Media Molecule, SCE Cambridge Studios, SCE Studio Liverpool, SCE San Diego Studios, and Sucker Punch Productions. We couldn’t have created such a compelling package without them!

As a reminder, you will be able to access the above content shortly after services are fully restored. We are doing everything we can to make that happen as soon as possible. Please visit the following sites for more information about the Welcome Back program in Europe and Latin America.

Thank you again for your support!

the company said it is also working with the game makers behind popular titles SOCOM 4 and Call of Duty to offer in-game bonuses as compensation.

Sony may be busy flipping the PlayStation Network switch back to the "on" position around the globe, but one locale where it won't be doing so just yet is its homeland of Japan. The Dow Jones newshounds report that the Japanese government refuses to allow Sony to reactivate its ailing network until satisfaction is reached on a couple of outstanding issues. The first is that the company's promised counter-hacking measures announced on May 1st have not yet been fully enacted -- though details of what has or hasn't been done yet are understandably unavailable -- and the second is that Japan wants to see further preventive measures taken to ensure users' credit card numbers and other private data won't be exposed through their use of Sony's online services again. These sound like rational demands to us, and Sony is already in talks with the authorities to make sure it lives up to their expectations.

Anyhow, I dunno...if you run up numbers for Sony's comp package for the PSN members. It's quite big...So, again...I'm a bit disappointed they did not provide more choices but I think they had their hands tied too somewhat given the number of members they had. The trickle-down effect from developers, licenses, and onwards is big in regards to the free games too.

Easy to hate. But, I dunno if they could've done better. Let's not forget they are desperate to fix their reputation...




But, I'm sure if this happened to Apple, their offering of one free iTune download would be universally applauded and worshiped.

Even as Sony began restoring its PlayStation Network service, a researcher complains that several security issues remain unresolved.

Sony finally restored its PlayStation Network nearly a month after the data breach that compromised more than 70 million user accounts. Japanese regulators remained skeptical that the company had properly secured its infrastructure.

Sony began its phased restoration of the PlayStation Network on May 14. To welcome users back, Sony rolled out a welcome-back package with free games, movie rentals and virtual toys. The package would be initially available to registered PSN and Qriocity users in North America, according to Patrick Seybold, senior director of corporate communications and social media. Users in other countries will receive the package when service is fully restored in those regions.

Sony was forced to shut down PSN for half an hour early in the morning on May 16 as users clamored to reset their passwords. Players first had to download a firmware update for the PlayStation console and then change their passwords for the gaming service. The large number of email messages automatically being generated slowed down the servers.

“From all of us at PlayStation, thank you and welcome back!” Seybold wrote on the Sony blog. The package was a way to thank users for their "patience, support and continued loyalty during the service outage," according to Seybold.

The entertainment giant shut down PSN and Qriocity on April 20 without any warning. The company admitted six days later that its network had been compromised and attackers had stolen user account data. It kept the services offline as it ostensibly fixed issues and improved security measures.

Sony’s computer networks remained “vulnerable to attack” three weeks after attackers compromised PlayStation Network, Qriocity and Sony Online Entertainment, John Bumgarner, chief technology officer of the United States Cyber-Consequences Unit, told Reuters. According to its Website, the US-CCU is an independent, nonprofit research institute that provides the United States government with economic and strategic assessments of the consequences of possible cyber-attacks.

Bumgarner claims he uncovered a host of security problems using targeted Google searches. He did not attempt to break into password-protected pages or exploit any vulnerabilities. His goal was to find security flaws on pages that were readily accessible.

"No one should be able to point a Web browser at Sony and see a security management console or find their identity management system that has been indexed by Google," Bumgarner told Reuters.

Bumgarner found other exploits in Sony’s network sites, including the Sony Corporation of America, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Electronics. He came across Sony Santa, an old gift card registry sweepstakes that collected personal information of customers. He also found an access point to a server running an identity management system that contained logins and password for employees in Sony Pictures Entertainment. Bumgarner also found a page via Google search that listed names, email addresses and phone numbers of IT managers, which could be misused to launch a spear-phishing attack.

In a file that instructs search-engine spiders which sections of the site should not be catalogued, Bumgarner found a link to an internal password-protected application. On May 4, Bumgarner came across a server that provided him with names, Facebook IDs and IP addresses of Sony customers playing games through Facebook. As late as May 10, he could view a login screen for the Riverbed Technology security management appliance Sony had deployed, with the user ID already pre-populated.

"Sony still has several external security issues that need to be addressed," said Bumgarner.

Even though Sony has restored services in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Australia and New Zealand, the company is still waiting for approval from Japanese regulators before resuming operations in the Asia-Pacific region. The regulators were not convinced the networks have been properly secured, Kazushige Nobutani, director of Japan's Media and Content Industry department at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, told Dow Jones Newswire.

Japanese government officials were concerned that Sony hasn't shown how the new defenses it has implemented are "good enough" compared to what was in place in the past. The Ministry of Economy was also unconvinced that Sony had a solid plan in place to protect the security of cardholder data, Nobutani told Dow Jones.

The welcome package gives customers a choice of two PlayStation 3 games, or two PlayStation Portable games. Games will be available for 30 days after the online store comes back online, according to Sony. Customers will also receive a selection of free movie rentals and 100 virtual items. Non PSN subscribers will get a free 30-day membership while existing customers will receive 30 days extra. Sony promised more free content to come.

Sony Online Entertainment, turned off since May 2, will also offer additional gaming perks when it comes back online.