Sony's apparent difficulty in figuring out the extent of the damage from the recent intrusion into its PlayStation Network, while frustrating for those affected by it, is not too surprising given the bag of tricks that hackers employ to hide their tracks.
All too often companies simply don't have the forensic tools or enough log data to be able to reliably piece together what might have happened and to determine the true scope of a breach. Sometimes, it can take weeks and months to get an accurate picture, and even longer for a breached entity to entirely clean out its networks.
Sony itself has offered no reason why it waited more than six days to inform consumers that their account information including name, address, birth date, purchase history, online ID and possibly credit card data, had been compromised.
More: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9216231/
All too often companies simply don't have the forensic tools or enough log data to be able to reliably piece together what might have happened and to determine the true scope of a breach. Sometimes, it can take weeks and months to get an accurate picture, and even longer for a breached entity to entirely clean out its networks.
Sony itself has offered no reason why it waited more than six days to inform consumers that their account information including name, address, birth date, purchase history, online ID and possibly credit card data, had been compromised.
More: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9216231/