Sony Recruits a Former U.S. Homeland Security Official

Published on 09-06-2011 11:17 PM

9 Comments

In "Giant Enemy Crab" news, the other day it was announced that Sony had hired a new CISO (Chief information security officer), in an attempt to prevent anyone from "attack(ing) it's weak spot", their troubled networks. It is not secret that Sony had been the target of a hacking attack, where the information of 100 million users leaked; not to mention, all the other attacks on PlayStation and other Sony targets. Sony's stock has fallen hard since the attacks began, and they have not been able to perform what they had intended to do in their various business markets. Sony hopes to get back on track by hiring a former official from the U.S Department of Homeland Security.

(Reuters) - Sony Corp picked a former official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for the new post of chief information security officer, months after a massive hacking attack leaked information on 100 million user accounts on its games networks.

Philip Reitinger, previously director of the U.S. National Cyber Security Center, will become senior vice president and will report to general counsel Nicole Seligman, the Japanese electronics conglomerate said on Tuesday.

"Certainly the network issue was a catalyst for the appointment," a Sony spokesman said. "We are looking to bolster our network security even further."

Shares in Sony have fallen 55 percent since the company revealed the hacking on April 27, sparking widespread criticism and casting a shadow over its plans for expansion in online businesses including music and movie distribution.

Concerns about losses in the TV department and the yen's rise against the euro have also contributed to Sony's woes.

Reitinger, who has also worked for Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Defense, will be based in Washington.

News Source: Reuters

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9 Comments

Kayot - 09-07-2011, 01:08 AM
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Yes, because the ONLY reason people lost interest in them was because of the system breech. It had absolutely nothing to do with their viscus and semi-illegal if not out right attacks on civil liberties and attack on anyone that even mentioned how to do the PS3 hack or to attempt to recreate said hack on newer firmwares. They dug their grave when they raided the house of someone who was restoring a feature. Granted they won't die. It'll just hurt a lot for a long while.

Tranced - 09-07-2011, 02:34 AM
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It's good that they want to secure their network for those who do use their services. Yes Sony has made mistakes but the consumers don't need to pay for those mistakes.

yes159 - 09-07-2011, 06:43 PM
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Kayot: Sony didnt raid any house. Sony is a private party, so doing that would be illegal. If Graf's house really was raided, then this was a choice done by the police, not by Sony. Sony doesnt have the authority to do that.

Which civil liberties do you mean by the way? I dont think that it is necessarily civil liberties to hack closed-source software and post encrytion and decryption keys online, if that is what you're referring to?

EDIT: I fixed a typo.

psxscenefan1 - 09-07-2011, 07:22 PM
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This will make it easier for them to use government resources to find people after they break in, but this guy probably won't make things more secure. He may be able to create policies but implementing them with incompetent people is a different matter.

Kayot - 09-08-2011, 02:30 PM
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yes159: Graf's house really was raided. It was the police AND Sony sent some specialists along to point out the 'evidence'. This was reported to the scene several months ago. The civil liberties I'm talking about are in regards to having Graf's stuff confiscated twice.

As for hacking etc, that's a gray law. One of the reasons Sony was willing to settle out with Geo is because it occurred to them that if they lost they would basically be handing the right to hack stuff we the people own. They knew they did the case wrong and that it was full of holes. Geo settling out simply prolonged the argument that we don't own our machine, they're just licensed to us at a huge fee and we have to pay a huge fee for repairs. It wasn't just about the PS3. Sadly another chance like Geo's wont come along again. Geo had the chance to go down in history, but he forfeited it because it would have been hard.

We are at and age where we must decide to do what is right, or to do what is easy. Geo did what was easy. We'll all pay the price for it.

yes159 - 09-08-2011, 05:42 PM
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Kayot: Yes, it was reported by several of sites indeed, but was this only based on Graf's own words or was there another source to this news as well? (I'm not indicating that Graf is lying, i'm just wondering if there is any other source this this case besides what he have told).

But i dont know enough about Graf's case to talk much about it. All i know is that for a search warrant to be approved there must be some proof or stronger suspicion of breaking the law. I am also not familiar with german law to discuss what he did is legal or not in Germany, but i mean to have picked up somewhere that laws against hacking is quite strict in Germany. So who knows if his civil right were violated (but if they were, it was the police that confiscated his stuff, not Sony. Sony might have filed the complaint, but they didnt take his stuff).

I also wonder a bit why we have hardly any updates on Graf's case. With Geohot's case there were a lot of updates. Maybe Graf doesnt want to talk about it. I think that is fair enough, but he did ask for donations and he got it, so i wonder why he dont update people on his case.

Regarding Sony's lawsuit against Geohot, i wonder if this would have set a predence against hacking stuff in general. What the case is about is mostly to reverse engineer closed-source software. I think it comes a lot down to Fair Use. If hacking a system which opens for piracy is fair use or not. I think questions like this would still be up for debate, and not that a predence for "hacking everything you bought is now legal" would be set. I belive that the piracy issue is the biggest thing here, which i think is understandable that console manufacturers dont want to happen. I would love to see a case where hacking is done, but where piracy isnt possible in any way, just to see how a case like this would end up. But that is just my thoughts on it

But personally i dont think that this really matters much in the end. Up to this date pretty much everything has been hacked even if it is legal or not. And i have honestly never heard of a end-user who have been arrested for only hacking their own device (i.e installing a modchip in their own console). So for end-users i dont see this case as much of a problem.

Also just a quick comment about ownership. This case is mostly (or perhaps only?) about software. When i buy a console, i dont own the software that is installed on it. The same goes for i.e Windows too when talking about operative systems. I dont own Windows, i pretty much just own a license to use it. The same goes for almost all closed-source software. If i truly owned a game that i bought, it would mean that i could legally make copies of it and sell it further, or put it up on the internet for others to download it. But i cant do these things even if i bought the game. The reason for this is because i dont own the content. This stuff is very common, so i wonder why there suddently have become so much focus on it after the PS3 case.

Kayot - 09-08-2011, 06:10 PM
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The problem is that Geo settled out and Sony won't make the same mistake again. It's a missed opportunity.

Not that it matters. Nintendo is making the same mistakes with the 3DS. They successfully crushed the DS flash carts and now after two price drops they can't move the units.

psxscenefan1 - 09-09-2011, 02:50 AM
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Originally Posted by Kayot

They successfully crushed the DS flash carts and now after two price drops they can't move the units.

Do you have a news source on this or could you expand further?

Mickrick - 09-09-2011, 06:36 AM
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Well "Homeland Security" is hardly a benchmark to set your security sights on is it? They missed the biggie and have kept US citizens in a permanent state of hyped-up paranoia since.

Oh wait, on second thoughts...