14 DAY TRIAL // Sony is considering offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for hacking into its online systems and compromising the personal and financial information of over 75 million customers.
According to All Things Digital, the option is still being discussed inside the company, but if a decision is taken to proceed in this direction the bounty will most likely be offered through law enforcement agencies.
The security breaches Sony is trying to cope with will probably end up costing the company huge amounts of money spent on investigation, mitigation and compensation.
The Japanese electronics giant has already contracted three separate security companies to perform computer forensics and audit the its systems and policies.
Since April 20, the PlayStation Network (PSN) has been completely offline and even the most loyal Sony fans are beginning to looe patience.
Furthermore, the Sony Online Entertainment subscription-based services, which include the online servers for popular MMORPGs like EverQuest and EverQuest II are also offline.
The company will have to offer identity protection services for over 75 million customers spread across a large number of countries governed by different legislation.
Since it cannot negotiate with a single provider to obtain a major discount based on the huge number of clients, this effort is likely to be extremely costly.
In comparison to all these expenses and other related losses, a generous bounty would be no big deal. It wouldn't be a first either, as other companies, including Microsoft, have resorted to similar actions, however, with little success.
The company suspects Anonymous members might have been involved, but the group strongly denies it. However, there are reports from credible sources that vulnerabilities in Sony's systems have been discussed within the hacktivist collective before the intrusions took place.