May 5, 2011 12:35 GMT  ·  By

Sony Online Entertainment, the branch of Sony which deals with publishing and maintenance of MMO titles, has announced that it does not yet know when popular games like Free Realms and DC Universe Online will be playable once again, although Sony has said that it plans to have the PlayStation Network up and working as soon as possible.

Information from Sony Online Entertainment says, “We have been working around the clock to restore operations as quickly as possible, and we expect to have some of our games and services up and running soon. However, we want to be very clear that we will only restore operations when we believe that the network is secure.”

SOE also says that it has managed to identify all those customers that have been affected by the security breach and have had personal data stolen and that it is sending e-mails their way, advising them on how to deal with the situation.

The company will be sending the messages via a third party and the sender field will show them as coming from “soe.innovyx.net” or from “soe.sony.com”.

Sony Online Entertainment initially said that its MMOs were not affected by the attacks that brought down the PSN, only to then announce that its security was breached as well and that hackers used a number of advanced techniques not just to steal information but also to cover up their tracks for some time.

When the SOE MMOs are back online the company says that it will be launching a number of programs designed to pay players back for the downtime as well as making sure that its games are secured for the future.

In DC Universe Online players will get 30 days of extra subscription plus credit for all the days the MMO was down.

A number of in-game items will also be delivered to players who return to the MMO.