Just when you think things are finally going to get back to normal, Sony comes out with another press conference telling us how screwed we all are.

Previously Sony said that there was no evidence that credit card information had been stolen as part of the PSN security breach. They warned us to be vigilant and monitor our credit card activity nonetheless. Credit card companies supported Sony, saying that they have had no reports of credit card fraud or identity theft reported as a result of the PSN security breach.

However, now Sony says that ten million PSN accounts may have had their credit card details stolen. Kaz Hirai of Sony himself quoted this number in a press conference in Tokyo yesterday, Sony confirmed that the CVV2 details (the confirmation number on the back of your credit card) were not stored on their servers, but being that these are only three digit numbers, hackers can easily brute force them by trying every different permutation of numbers. Sony made it clear that these details are only “potentially” at risk, though it’s still recommended that PSN users change their card number if at all possible.

In other news, the Sony Online Entertainment outage does in fact seem to be linked to the Playstation Network breach. SOE recently revealed that the personal information of 24.6 million Sony Online Entertainment accounts has been leaked at the same time the PSN information has. In addition, 12,700 non-U.S. credit and debit card numbers and expiration dates were obtained, as well as 10,700 accounts worth of direct debit information for accounts in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain.

Luckily enough, this database was actually out of date. The hackers only managed to break in to an out of date database from 2007, and Sony has assured customers that their current credit card database has not been compromised. That being said, if you haven’t changed your credit card info since 2007 and you subscribed to Sony MMO’s like Free Realms and DC Universe Online, you might want to pick up a new card as well.

Overall, it hasn’t been a good month for Sony. Even with their welcome back plan, one has to wonder what they will do to keep their user base in tact. With E3 approaching, Sony will certainly have to wow us to avoid losing customers. Personally, we think the first step is actually getting the PSN back online.

Related posts on 30ninjas.com:

• The Sony Playstation Network Outage Updates
• Sony Network Outage Now a Global Incident
• PSN Outage Changing the World — Updates for May 4th
• The Big PSN Outage Weekly Update
• Playstation Network Outage Goes from Bad to Worse
• Sony Tells Congress Anonymous Was the PSN Security Breach Culprit