And the nightmare continues. Following up fromthis morning's server outages, Sony Online Entertainment has confirmed that the information of 24.6 million SOE user accounts could have been stolen.

"Personal information from approximately 24.6 million SOE accounts may have been stolen, as well as certain information from an outdated database from 2007," says an SOE announcement.




It adds: "The information from the outdated database that may have been stolen includes approximately 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes), and about 10,700 direct debit records of certain customers in Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Spain.

Account details leaked include name, address, e-mail address, birthdate, gender, phone number, login name and hashed password. However, from the 10,700 Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Spain accounts stolen, hackers could have also accessed their bank account number, customer name, account name and customer address.

"Upon discovery of this additional information, the company promptly shut down all servers related to SOE services while continuing to review and upgrade all of its online security systems in the face of these unprecedented cyber-attacks," said SOE.

It says emails will be sent to all whose details may have been stolen, and users will receive compensation in the form of play time for the server outages.

"SOE will grant customers 30 days of additional time on their subscriptions, in addition to compensating them one day for each day the system is down," it said. It is also in the process of outlining a "make good" plan for its PS3 MMOs (DC Universe Online and Free Realms).

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