In April 2011 the online platform of Sony, PlayStation Network, was the victim of a cyber attack that affected its content and operation for several days and compromised the information of nearly 70 million users. This episode was a blow to the Japanese company that had experienced the risks of computer technology in its own right.
At that time Shawn Layden was executive vice president of Sony Network Entertainment and recently spoke in an interview about the complicated event.
As part of an interview conducted by Polygon with Shawn Layden, who is today the head of PlayStation in the United States, those black days of April 2011 for PlayStation Network and Sony came out.
The executive recalled how complicated it was to deal with the situation but said that the company has been able to learn from their mistakes and on this particular incident revealed that it was a hard but positive lesson for the whole team on PlayStation: “It took years off my life. I remember the day. If it had to happen to us, I’m glad it happened then. We’ve learned so much from that experience.”
“We were in as good a position as we could be at the time with what was, at the time, state of the art. But we did get hit and we have taken our capabilities in that area to the highest degree possible. So no one is complacent or, or ignorant about the dangers and the challenges that are out there but I think we are in a much better place today. We have had our baptism by fire.”
