The PlayStation Network hack most people mean happened in April 2011. Sony detected an intrusion, shut down PSN and Qriocity, and later said information associated with about 77 million registered accounts may have been compromised. The outage ended in stages: service returned in some regions in May, broad restoration followed in June, and Japan’s full restoration came on July 6.
That breach was not the same event as the related Sony Online Entertainment incident, an October 2011 wave of account sign-in attempts, or a 2016 DDoS attack that disrupted PSN. The timeline below separates the intrusion, Sony’s disclosures, service restoration, and those later incidents.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
Sony Playstation 3 160GB System (Renewed) | $184.22 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
|
Sony PlayStation 3 Slim 320 GB Charcoal Black Console (Renewed) | $210.81 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
|
PlayStation 3 Slim Console 120GB (Old Model) (Renewed) | $160.33 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
|
PlayStation 3 500 GB Super Slim System (Renewed) | $228.22 | Buy on Amazon |
| 5 |
|
Sony PlayStation 3 - 80GB System (Renewed) | $217.22 | Buy on Amazon |
The April 2011 PSN breach at a glance
- Intrusion window identified by Sony: April 17–19, 2011.
- Shutdown: Sony took PSN and Qriocity services offline on April 20 after detecting suspicious activity and finding credible evidence of an intrusion.
- Customer disclosure: Sony’s public customer notice was dated April 26; a detailed Q&A followed on April 27.
- Accounts: Sony referred to approximately 77 million registered accounts. That is not a count of confirmed individual victims or proof that every account’s full record was accessed.
- Restoration: Selected services returned beginning May 15. Restoration varied by service and region, with Japan’s full return announced for July 6.
PSN provided PlayStation online services, including online play and account features. Qriocity was Sony’s related online service. Sony’s response to the intrusion was to shut down both services while it investigated.
April 2011: intrusion, shutdown, and disclosure
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| April 17–19 | Sony later identified this as the period in which account information was compromised. The company’s congressional testimony described the intrusion window as April 17 through April 19. |
| April 19 | Sony detected unusual activity on PSN servers. Its later testimony described suspicious activity on four servers. |
| April 20 | Sony said it had credible evidence of an intruder and shut down PSN services to prevent further unauthorized activity. This was the start of the customer-facing outage, not the date Sony first detected suspicious activity. |
| April 21–25 | Sony brought in outside forensic expertise and investigated what had happened and what data might have been accessed. |
| April 26 | Sony published a customer notice saying personal information associated with PSN and Qriocity accounts may have been obtained by an unauthorized person. Sony’s April 26 customer notice |
| April 27 | Sony published a detailed Q&A, including the figure of 77 million registered accounts and an explanation of how it described stored personal and credit-card data. Sony’s April 27 Q&A |
There is a discrepancy in how Sony’s public-notification chronology has been described. Its later testimony to the U.S. Senate says customers were notified through a PlayStation Blog post on April 22, while the customer notice reproduced on Sony’s official blog is dated April 26. The internal detection and shutdown dates are clearer than that particular notification reference; the public-facing notice about possible data compromise is dated April 26. Sony testimony in the Senate hearing record
The Tool Desk
Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →#1 Best Overall
- Internet Ready With Built-in Wi-Fi with a Cell Broadband Engine Advanced Microprocessor
- When starting up the system for the first time, hold the power button until a "screen display" message shows up on screen. Select the desired output, and the system will startup normally.
- 160GB system
- Blu-ray player to give you pristine picture quality
- The best high-definition viewing experience available
What information may have been exposed?
Sony said information associated with accounts may have been compromised. Its notice and Q&A identified personal and account details including:
- Name, address, email address, and date of birth.
- PSN or Qriocity login information, including passwords, and PSN online IDs.
- Profile information and purchase history.
- Billing address and answers to security questions.
- Equivalent information for authorized sub-accounts.
Sony distinguished the personal-information table from the credit-card table: it said the former was not encrypted and the latter was encrypted. Sony said it had no evidence that stored credit-card data had been taken, but could not initially rule out that possibility. The official statements do not establish that 77 million credit-card numbers were stolen. Sony’s April 27 Q&A
Rank #2
- New slimmer, lighter PS3 system, Wireless controller
- 320GB HDD for storing games, music, videos, and photos
- Streams thousands of movies and TV shows instantly from Netflix
- Built-in Blu-ray player with 3D capabilities. HDMI output for 1080p resolution.
The 77 million figure is a count of registered accounts in the affected services, not a verified count of unique people, complete records exfiltrated, or accounts misused. Sony later reported that, as of its 2014 quarterly securities report, it had received no confirmed reports of customer identity theft or credit-card misuse connected with the cyberattacks. That later statement does not prove that no personal information was accessed or that no unreported misuse occurred. Sony’s 2014 quarterly securities report
When PSN came back online
There was no single worldwide restoration date. Sony brought services back in phases, and the timing varied by region. The dates below describe Sony’s announcements and planned or announced service status, not a claim that every feature returned simultaneously for every customer.
Rank #3
- HDMI + Bravia Sync functionality that provides both 1080p output resolution.
- A new 33% slimmer, 36% lighter PlayStation 3 entertainment system that is also more energy efficient.
- Includes a Dualshock 3 wireless controller and a built-in 120GB HDD for storing games, music, videos, and photos.
- Built-in Wi-Fi for connectivity anywhere and multiple media format compatibility.
- Free membership and access to all the events, as well as game, movie, TV and other media content available on the PlayStation Network (PSN).
| Date | Restoration milestone |
|---|---|
| May 1 | Sony announced a phased restoration plan and outlined security changes. Sony’s May 1 announcement |
| May 15 | Selected services began returning in North America and parts of Europe and Asia. The initial phase included sign-in, password resets, online play, and related services. Sony’s May 15 announcement |
| May 28 | Sony announced a phased return in Japan and other Asian territories. Sony’s May 27 announcement |
| June 2 | Sony announced full restoration in the Americas, Europe/PAL territories, and most of Asia, with Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea excluded from that milestone. Sony’s June 2 announcement |
| July 6 | Full restoration of PSN and Qriocity services in Japan followed. Sony announced the date on July 4. Sony’s July 4 announcement for Japan |
For customers in the United States, the outage began with the April 20 shutdown and selected PSN services returned in May, with Sony announcing broad restoration on June 2. A global account of the shutdown should use July 6 as the final full-restoration milestone because Japan’s service returned later.
Security changes and customer response
Changes Sony announced
Sony said it added or upgraded security technologies, increased software monitoring, conducted penetration and vulnerability testing, added encryption and firewalls, and rebuilt or relocated parts of its network infrastructure. Before customers could sign back in, they were required to change their passwords. Sony also said it tested payment and commerce functions before restoring the PlayStation Store. These are measures Sony announced; they do not by themselves establish how effective each measure proved over time. Sony’s May 1 restoration plan · Sony’s May 15 restoration announcement
Rank #4
- Your Favorite Franchises Live Here: Dig into a huge catalog of exclusive games, including generation defining titles like The Last of Us and entries in popular franchises like LittleBigPlanet, God of War, Gran Turismo, and UNCHARTED.
- High-Definition Blu-ray player for the best movie experience. Plays DVDs and CDs
- 500GB HDD for storing games, music, videos, and photos
- Internet ready with built-in Wi-Fi
- Blu-ray player
Welcome Back program
Sony offered a “Welcome Back” program to registered PSN and Qriocity customers. Benefits and terms differed by region. Sony’s May 27 announcement specified two free PlayStation 3 titles and two free PSP titles for customers who had registered before April 21, 2011; the program also included free services and premium content. It was not a universal cash payment. Sony’s May 27 announcement
Warnings to customers
Sony advised customers to be alert for phishing attempts and to watch for suspicious account or financial activity. The exposure of login credentials also made changing a reused password elsewhere prudent for anyone who had used the same password on another service. Sony’s customer notice
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Best Value
- Built-in Wi-Fi access for easy connection to gaming services and the Internet
- Built-in Blu-ray player to give you the best high-definition viewing experience and pristine picture quality
- 80 GB of hard disk storage for all your games, music, videos, and photos
- This product is NOT backwards compatible
The related Sony Online Entertainment breach
On May 3, 2011, Sony disclosed that data had been stolen from Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), a separate online-gaming operation. Sony believed the SOE theft stemmed from the same criminal activity affecting the broader Sony network environment. SOE was related to the 2011 episode, but it was not simply another copy of the PSN account database. SOE began restoring its game services on May 14. Sony’s 2011 press-release archive · SOE restoration announcement
Quick Recap
Later incidents often mistaken for the 2011 breach
| Date | Incident | What it was—and was not |
|---|---|---|
| October 7–10, 2011 | Unauthorized sign-in attempts against PSN, Sony Entertainment Network, and SOE. | Sony said attackers tested credential lists believed to have come from other companies, websites, or sources. About 93,000 accounts were verified—approximately 60,000 PSN/SEN accounts and 33,000 SOE accounts—and temporarily locked. Sony said credit-card numbers were not at risk from this activity. This was credential stuffing, not a new PSN database intrusion. Sony’s October 12 announcement |
| December 2014 | Sony Pictures Entertainment attack. | This affected a different Sony subsidiary and involved corporate systems; it was not a PlayStation Network breach. U.S. Department of Justice update |
| October 21, 2016 | Mirai-linked distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. | The U.S. Department of Justice said a Mirai-variant botnet was used in attacks intended to take PSN offline, alongside disruption to Dyn’s domain-name-resolution infrastructure and other services. A DDoS attack overwhelms availability; the cited account does not describe this as theft of PSN customer data. Sony estimated about $2.7 million in lost net revenue. U.S. Department of Justice case |
What is known—and what remains uncertain
- Responsibility: Sony’s testimony situated the intrusion amid denial-of-service attacks and threats tied to the wider conflict over its legal action involving PlayStation 3 security and jailbreaking. Anonymous-related actors denied responsibility in contemporary coverage. The cited public record does not establish that Anonymous carried out the PSN data breach. Senate hearing record · PCWorld’s contemporary timeline
- Extent of account access: Sony’s 77 million registered-account figure is not the same as a confirmed count of fully accessed or misused accounts.
- Payment data: Sony described the credit-card table as encrypted, said it had no evidence it was taken, and initially could not exclude the possibility. That is not confirmation of mass card theft.
- Notification dates: Sony’s later testimony and the date on its public customer notice do not align neatly. The April 26 notice is the dated public disclosure reproduced on Sony’s blog; the testimony separately refers to an April 22 blog post.
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
