Sony faultless at court hearing

The catastrophic hacking of the Playstation Network last year has finally seen court time, but a US federal judge has found little fault with Sony.

Sony faced a class-action lawsuit claiming a security breach exposed the personal details and credit card accounts of over 69 million people.

If you don’t remember the breach, it was the enormous one. Hackers infiltrated the system in April 2011, ultimately causing the Playstation Network to go down for almost a month.

Sony admitted the theft with a statement saying the breach may have had “a financial impact on our loyal customers. We are currently reviewing options and will update you when the service is restored.”

But as the “financial impact” caused concern for the courts, a 36-page order from US District Judge Anthony Battaglia dismissed most of the claims, including negligence, unjust enrichment, bailment and consumer protection statutes.

Sony did not break these laws because “none of the names plaintiffs subscribed to premium PSN services, and thus received the PSN services free of cost.”

Reparations were also attempted by offering free games to users when the network was back online, other free downloads and identity theft protection services.

Of course, this hack wasn’t strictly Sony’s fault in the first place; if a criminal wants to get in somewhere, they tend to get in. But should Sony have been aware that their system was vulnerable to such an attack?

Think back to the network crash for us – do you think Sony handled the situation well, or was the entire thing a massive screw-up from beginning to end? Did the reparations fit the mistake? Comment below and let us know what you think.