Daily Archives: April 27, 2011

(CNN) — A hacker has obtained the personal information of PlayStation Network account holders and subscribers of the Qriocity streaming service, Sony said in a message to customers Tuesday.

Sony’s investigations over the past week determined that an “unauthorized person” has obtained users’ names, home addresses, e-mail addresses, birth dates and passwords, according to a statement being sent to all account holders.”

While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility,” said Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment, which manage the two services, in a joint statement.The hacker could have taken credit card numbers, card expiration dates, billing addresses, answers to security questions and purchase history, but not credit-card security codes, they said.

Sony is encouraging customers “to protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss” by reviewing credit-card statements.

The company also suggested that some customers may want to place a “fraud alert” with credit bureaus.

The attack has crippled Sony’s PlayStation Network, which has some 70 million subscribers and has been down since Wednesday.

The network lets customers download video games from the Web and play against each other online.

Sony did not say how many accounts had been compromised.

A spokeswoman declined to comment Tuesday.