Sony to hold news conference Sun. over data breach incident

TOKYO, April 30 Kyodo -
Sony Corp. said Saturday it will hold a news conference on Sunday afternoon at its headquarters in Tokyo over a recent data breach incident involving its popular PlayStation Network services.
Executive Vice President Kazuo Hirai, who doubles as president of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., will explain the company's probe into the incident and its response to users of the services.
The move comes after a U.S. House of Representatives panel sent a host of questions to Sony over the incident, with the panel particularly concerned about a possible leakage of credit card information on 77 million PlayStation network users around the world.
On Wednesday, Sony said personal information on all 77 million users of its PlayStation Network services around the world may have been leaked by a hacker, possibly including credit card numbers, and called on users to regularly monitor their credit card bills.
In response to the intrusion, Sony has temporarily shut down the network services, asked an outside security firm to conduct a full investigation into the incident and quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen its network infrastructure.
As of March 20, there were 77 million accounts for the services offered in about 60 countries, according to Sony. It is estimated the services have around 9 million users in Japan.