Sony PlayStation Network, near Qriocity of return

Sony seems to be close to put an end to a long two weeks of its PlayStation Network outage. The company said late Thursday that it is in the last phase of internal testing of the new system, but he stopped to say when the popular online game service would resume operations.

Sony has been forced to build a new system after a wide and embarrassing security breach forced to take the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services offline April 20. The extent of the damage in the attack is still under investigation, but Sony has confirmed that the personal information of 77 million accounts were obtained in the attack.

"We have worked tirelessly to rebuild the network and improve the measures for the protection of your personal data," the company said in a blog view. "It is our absolute priority so that your data are safe when you start to use new services".

The new system includes more firewall and additional software which should alert the sysadmins on any suspicious activity.

Sunday, the company said it intended to bring the PlayStation Network and Qriocity online in stages. Online games and access to film unexpired lease will be the first services to return to the PlayStation Network, while the Qriocity users will be able to use the music on demand service, the company said. Other functions, including the PlayStation Store, will be available in mid-May.

Also, on Thursday, Sony began to offer U.S. users a subscription lasting one year to an identity theft protection program. The service includes the monitoring of the Internet for the exhibition of the personal information of users and of $ 1 million insurance against losses from identity theft. Services for users in other regions are due to be announced soon.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer has also chosen Thursday to make his first comments on the attack.

"As a company we - and - I apologize for the inconvenience and worries caused by this attack", Stringer said in [< href="http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/05/a-letter-from-howard-stringer/">a posted letter]

Letter from repeated Stringer that the company has found no evidence of the date of the loss of information or credit card from fraudulent use of the maps resulting from the recent attack.