Sony to Reboot Playstation PSN in New Data Center

Sony said today that it will shift the operation of the Playstation Network (PSN) to a new data center as part of a broader retooling to improve the security of the service, which was shut down last week after intruders gained access to data from up to 78 million customer accounts.

Meanwhile, Sony also took its online role-playing games offline, and later confirmed that hackers had also penetrated security systems at the Sony Online Entertainment service.

The PSN servers had been housed in an AT&T data center in San Diego, California. The Playstation Network is operated by a Sony  Network  Entertainment International, a business unit created last year to manage dedicated infrastructure for PSN. Sony hosts most of its gaming infrastructure  with AT&T's game hosting division, which operates out of multiple data centers around the globe.

Sony said that it had "expedited an already planned move of the system to a new data center in a different location that has been under construction and development for several months," according to an update on the Playstation blog. "Following a criminal cyber-attack on the company’s data-center located in San Diego, California, U.S.A., SNEI quickly turned off the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, engaged multiple expert information security firms over the course of several days and conducted an extensive audit of the system. Since then, the company has implemented a variety of new security measures to provide greater protection of personal information."

Sony did not indicate the location of the new data center or provide details on how it might differ from the facility in San Diego that had previously housed PSN. The data center move was part of a broader initiative to improve the security of the network.

UPDATE: On Monday Sony also took the Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) service offline, and later said that its security had also been breached, resulting in the theft of personal information from 24.6 million SOE accounts may have been stolen, along with 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers. The SOE network provides online gaming for PC users playing Sony massively multiplayer games such as Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies, while the SNEI network supports gamers using the PlayStation gaming system.