PSN Hacking Was a Great Experience, Sony Executive Says

The recent hacker attack that took the PlayStation Network down was a "great experience," at least in the eyes of Sony Network Entertainment boss Tim Schaaff, who quickly added that the company learned a lot, but doesn't want such a thing to happen again.

Sony was attacked by hackers back in April, act which forced the company to take down the PlayStation Network online service in order to research what damage had been done and rebuild it in a more secure manner.

After leaving PSN users almost a month without the online service, meaning no multiplayer for the games they owned, no ability to access the online PlayStation Store or other such services, Sony brought it back, gradually, and has now revealed, in hindsight that the attack was a great learning experience.

Speaking during the GamesBeat conference, sponsored by Venture Beat, Sony Network Entertainment boss Tim Schaaff said that the cyber attack was "a great experience. I would not like to do it again. One time was enough. Great learning experience."

Sony panicked a bit at the beginning, because of the ferocity of the attack, but quickly saw that hackers were pursuing other targets as well, including other game companies or entities like NATO.

“It's dramatic but that the lesson we learned from this process is that there are some crazy things going on in the world right now, and in the beginning we were very concerned that we were the focal point for this attack, and it was all about Sony, and what was Sony doing," he said. “But over time, the company learned that a wide variety of sites had been hit, including government institutions and other companies.

The Sony executive also highlighted that companies can't take any special measures to completely prevent any sort of attack, but can take measures to cope with them in the most efficient ways possible.

“I think for people running network businesses, it's not just about improving your security, because I've never talked to a security expert who said, 'As long you do the following three things you'll be fine, because hackers won't get you.’ The question is how do you build your life so you're able to cope with those things.”

After the downtime, the PlayStation Network, alongside its key components, is now fully functional all across the world, including North America, Europe or Asia.