A hacker has obtained the personal information of PlayStation Network account holders and subscribers of the Qriocity streaming service, Sony said in a message to customers Tuesday.
Sony's investigations over the past week determined that an "unauthorized person" had obtained users' names, home addresses, e-mail addresses, birth dates and passwords, according to a statement being sent to all account holders.
The attack also has crippled Sony's PlayStation Network, which has some 70 million subscribers and has been down since April 20. The network lets customers download video games from the Web and play against each other online.
"While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility," said Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment, which manage the two services, in a joint statement.
The hacker could have taken credit card numbers, card expiration dates, billing addresses, answers to security questions and purchase history, but not credit-card security codes, they said.
Sony is encouraging customers "to protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss" by reviewing credit-card statements. The company also suggested that some customers may want to place a "fraud alert" with credit bureaus.
Sony did not say how many accounts had been compromised. A spokeswoman declined to comment Tuesday.
Some subscribers reacted angrily to the news.
"You waited a WEEK to tell us our (personal) information was compromised?" one PlayStation user wrote on a Sony blog. "That should have been said last Thursday" -- the day when Sony first acknowledged the issue.
The intrusions occurred between April 17 and 19, according to the statement. On April 20, Sony switched off the PlayStation and Qriocity online services, which have remained in the dark.
Users and paid subscribers were also mostly in the dark until Tuesday about the reason for the lengthy outage or about when services would be reinstated.
Sony initially said its PS network would be be back online within one to two days.
On Tuesday, PlayStation spokesman Patrick Seybold wrote in a statement that it could take another week before they "expect to restore some services."
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