Sony hires ex Homeland Security official to prevent data breaches

Sony is putting a former US government official in charge of cyber security, effective today.

Philip Reitinger, was previously director of the U.S. National Cyber Security Center. He has also held positions in both the Justice and Defense Departments and at Microsoft.

His job with Sony as Chief Information Security Officer will make him responsible for cyber security throughout the company.

This, of course, comes months after multiple serious data breaches. The biggest attack targeted the PlayStation Network and resulted in personal information, including credit card numbers and CCV codes, being stolen.

Another compromised details of several million Sony Online Entertainment customers.

Making matters worse. Sony tarnished their reputation further with multiple bungled attempts to get their services back online.

No doubt they hope Reitinger's reputation will improve stockholder and consumer confidence. Given the company's size, any actual change will no doubt take a lot of time, effort, and money.

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 6 Sep 2011 19:31

brockie

good to hear it was not there fault in the first place.

multiple bungled attempts not so sure that is true.

6.9.2011 20:43 #1

KillerBug

Yeah...it wasn't their fault that they refused all firewall updates or that they fired their most talented security staff. It wasn't their fault that there was a massive hole in credit card security that the entire world knew about a month before the breach. It wasn't their fault that they attracted every hacker on earth by attacking people for writing linux drivers.

Still, good to hear this. With this moron in charge of security, we should have 3.70 keys within a few days. Reminder: this is the guy that made Wikileaks what it is today.

6.9.2011 23:05 #2

brockie

killerbug would not be a Sony story without you :)

7.9.2011 05:03 #3

xtago

Originally posted by KillerBug: Yeah...it wasn't their fault that they refused all firewall updates or that they fired their most talented security staff. It wasn't their fault that there was a massive hole in credit card security that the entire world knew about a month before the breach. It wasn't their fault that they attracted every hacker on earth by attacking people for writing linux drivers.

Still, good to hear this. With this moron in charge of security, we should have 3.70 keys within a few days. Reminder: this is the guy that made Wikileaks what it is today. Really shouldn't have used open code software that allows people to find holes in the software.

That's the problem with Linux it's full of huge holes that no one really bothers to fix up.

I remember a few years ago Linux had 3 huge holes that allowed the person to be above the root user and they couldn't do anything at all about it and was in the kernel so you couldn't remove it and it has been in every distro for about 10+ years.

That say it shocked the hard core devs is an understatement, when hackers came out about it.

7.9.2011 06:35 #4

Interestx

It's the blyth claims that everything was fine, no problem & nobody ought to worry when they must have known by then that people's financial details had leaked out that get me in this.

One might (and I only say might) forgive their complacency as regards the state of their security before the attacks - although given what went on and how that's hard to do - but to tell paying customers that their financial details were secure when they were not for at least 1 month is utterly unforgivable.

How and why would anyone trust a word they have to say on the subject now?

A couple of games on PSN+ wouldn't buy me off so easily, this has been nothing but a shocking and total disregard of their customer base.

7.9.2011 09:11 #5

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