With over 100 million users affected with Sony’s biggest hack ever on PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment, the company is slowly revealing the number of affected users in various countries. According to Irish publication, The Post.IE, Sony has filed an ‘‘initial report’’ to the Office of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner on the loss of names, addresses, passwords and other personal data of over 400,000 Irish PlayStation account holders.
As many as 60,000 Irish credit card accounts were also exposed during an internet hacking episode which affected 100 million people worldwide. Sony is unlikely to face any sanction under Irish data protection law, which is based on a voluntary code. Despite several lawsuits in the US, experts say that the company will also escape legal action from affected Irish subscribers, whose only legal remedy lies in proving a breach of the company’s duty of care.
Under Irish law, companies are not currently required to report details of a data breach either to the Data Protection Commissioner or to the data subjects themselves. However, the hacking attack is said to be one of the most serious data breaches ever to affect Irish internet users.
Infosec India 