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Sony's PlayStation Network is still down, and the company still can't say when it will be back, but it finally seems to be getting worried that the data breach, which exposed users' credit card information as well as passwords and other personal information, may cost it a few customers. Sony CEO Howard Stringer took to the PlayStation blog today to apologize to users and offer some incentives for them to return -- whenever the company gets the network operating again.
"As a company we — and I — apologize for the inconvenience and concern caused by this attack," Stringer wrote. In his letter to PlayStation users the CEO offered each a $1 million insurance policy against identity theft in addition to a "welcome back" package that included a free month of service plus a refund for time lost during the outage.
The company is facing an increasingly vehement backlash for its handling of the breach, primarily for the fact that it waited two days before addressing customers. Stringer addressed that concern today, calling it a "fair question." He said (as he has before), that the company shut down its servers when it noticed something wrong, but waited to address customers until it could figure out what that something was. "I wish we could have gotten the answers we needed sooner, but forensic analysis is a complex, time-consuming process."