Sir Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony Corporation, has moved to defend the company’s response time to the cyber attack on PlayStation Network last month.
Critics accused the hardware giant of taking too long to informer customers that vital account information had been compromised as a result of the “external intrusion” on the service in mid-April.
However, speaking to Reuters this week, Stringer insisted the company reacted in a timely fashion. “This was an unprecedented attack," he said. "A lot of these breaches are never reported by companies or it takes companies a month. You’re telling me my week wasn’t fast enough?"
Elsewhere, the executive conceded that Sony has yet to determine exactly how much PSN’s downtime would cost the company.
"There’s a charge for the system being down, a charge for identity theft protection. The charges mount up but there are no numbers yet,” he commented.
Sony started its phased restoration process for PSN over the weekend. As a means of compensation, the firm also rolled out a ‘Welcome Back’ initiative, which allows PSN users a choice of two free games among other freebies.