Expert says Sony knew of PSN security weakness

The PlayStation Network outage plot thickens. In today's hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Sony executive vice president Kaz Hirai refused to testify. One who did testify, however, was US Public Policy Council of the Association for Computing Machinery head Gene Spafford, and did he ever have some words for Sony.

During his testimony, Spafford claimed that Sony was well aware of the security holes in the PlayStation Network, asserting that PSN was using old software that was "unpatched and had no firewall installed." He also noted that these security issues were brought to the table in a Sony-moderated forum, but no action was taken as a result.

If these claims are true, Sony is in for an even bigger world of hurt, and this situation could escalate into something not even a complimentary Batman mask can rectify.

In related news, TG Daily reports that New York's Attorney General has subpoenaed Sony over the data breach and what "representations" were made to its customers in regard to the security of their information.