PlayStation Network Outage: The Real Costs

Now that Sony’s PlayStation Network is back online again, analysts are beginning to assess the real-world cost of the network breach and shutdown of the giant gaming establishment.

Even as recently as this past week, Sony was still having trouble with the PlayStation Network, taking down its password resetting facility because of another Sony oversight: not realizing that hackers might be able to re-exploit any of the 77 million hacked accounts because of the information they obtained.

Here’s an infographic retracing the steps of Sony’s fiasco, and then assessing the financial damage using independent research data from the Ponemon Institute.