PlayStation Network hacker gained access to millions of gamers' personal data, Sony reveals

As if not being able to play any Call of Duty games online wasn’t bad enough, now millions of gamers’ personal information may have been compromised. Sony announced today that its PlayStation Network service — which has been down since April 20 due to an “external intrusion” — was infiltrated by “an unauthorized person” who gained access to gamers’ names, mailing addresses, e-mail addresses, birthdays, logins, and passwords. Although Sony says there’s no evidence that users’ credit card data was stolen, the company says it cannot rule out the possibility. The PlayStation Network, which allows PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable users to download and play games, movies, and music online, serves a reported 77 million accounts worldwide, making this one of the largest breaches of personal identity data ever.

Today’s statement marked Sony’s first official announcement regarding the security breach since the PlayStation Network went dark last Wednesday. The company has hired a security firm to investigate the break-in, and expects to restore “some services within a week.” For the time being, Sony recommends PlayStation Network users to pay close attention to any e-mail, phone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal information, and to monitor their account statements and credit reports. Plus Portal 2‘s single-player campaign is just begging to be revisited.

PlayStation gamers, how have you been coping with the outage? And has this security breach made anyone consider switching to the Xbox 360?