PSN Breach Could Carry $US24b Price Tag (In Some Fantasy World)

While the financial ramifications of the PlayStation Network’s “external intrustion” on Sony, PlayStation developers and consumers likely won’t be known for many moons, a data-security research firm and the mathematicians at Forbes have put a worst-case scenario price tag on the breach: $US24 billion.

That gargantuan figure was derived by multiplying the number of PlayStation Network accounts (77 million) by the “cost of a data breach involving a malicious or criminal act”, which according to the Ponemon Institute, averaged $US318 last year. Of course, not every PSN account has current credit card data or accurate personal information attached to it, meaning the actual figure could be much less.

Regardless of the actual cost to Sony and its customers, it’s certainly a massive loss in terms of trust and sales, which we may see reflected in the company’s earnings over the course of the coming months and years.

Sony: Credit data risked in PlayStation outage [Forbes]