Sony: PSN hack a great learning experience

The man in charge of Sony’s network entertainment division has outlined the lessons learned from PSN’s hack attack.

Speaking at the Gamesbeat 2011 conference in San Francisco, Tim Schaaff told VentureBeat recovering from a major hack is about more than just improving security.

Sony switched off its online gaming PlayStation Network service for almost one month in April following a hack that obtained the personal details of around 77m users.

It’s dramatic but that the lesson we learned from this process is that there are some crazy things going on in the world right now, and in the beginning we were very concerned that we were the focal point for this attack, and it was all about Sony, and what was Sony doing," he said.

But over time, the company learned that a wide variety of sites had been hit, including government institutions and other companies.

I think for people running network businesses, it’s not just about improving your security, because I’ve never talked to a security expert who said, ‘As long you do the following three things you’ll be fine, because hackers won’t get you.’ The question is how do you build your life so you’re able to cope with those things.”

It’s been a great experience,” he added.

When asked to elaborate on this, Schaaff replied: A great experience. I would not like to do it again. One time was enough. Great learning experience.”

PSN went back online in May in the UK, while the PlayStation Store has only just gone live again in Japan. Sony says network performance and sales are better than ever.