After allegedly being hacked by Anonymous (the same group that attacked Amazon), Sony is promising that the PlayStation Network will reappear by the end of this month.

The company is in the process of adopting an improved security system and its plan to restart the services fully by May 31 is unchanged, he said. Sony shut down the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services April 20 because of possible data theft by hackers. (Bloomberg)

In order to appease fans, Sony is offering users four free games when the service reappears, although the company is only allowing fans to choose games from a preselected list.

While offering free games is “okay,” Sony needs to provide a better way to secure users accounts in order to regain the trust lost from fans (especially after Sony waited a full week before notifying anyone about the seriousness of the breach).

Although rebuilding the PlayStation Network from scratch is a good start, Sony might want to take a cue from Facebook and employ a two step verification feature whenever someone logs on or charges their credit card.

Since two step verification can be seen as a nuisance by some users, Sony should make this feature opt-in for the masses.

While only time will tell if Sony will be able to regain the trust of their users, securing how people can access the games that they love (as well as their credit cards) is a good start.

Originally posted on May 9, 2011 @ 11:17 am