Sony admits further data losses ahead of customer retention effort

Sony has admitted the personal information of a further 24.6 million customers may have been stolen, as it seeks to mollify customers affected by an earlier data theft.

Sony: second data theft revealed
Sony: second data theft revealed

, which it could not rule out including credit card details, on around 77 million users of its PlayStation Network and its music and video on-demand service, Qriocity, in mid-April.

It has now disclosed its Sony Online Entertainment arm, which offers "massively multiplayer online games" such as 'EverQuest', was also hit by hackers.

Information obtained includes names, addresses, email addresses, birthdates and phone numbers.

In addition, Sony said, the hackers "may have" taken information from a database from 2007 that include around 12,700 non-US credit or debit cards numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes) and around 10,700 direct debit records of customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain.

In a bid to placate customers affected by the data breaches, Sony has said it will give them free entertainment content and 30 days' free additional time on their subscriptions, under the banner 'Welcome Back'.

It also said it will "shortly" begin to restore PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, which were withdrawn on 20 April, with tougher security measures.

All registered PlayStation Network users will be forced to choose a new password before they can sign in.

Sony continues to assert that there is no evidence yet that credit card data was taken.

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