Sony has been fined £250,000 – and the company’s data protection policies criticised – by UK authorities investigating the infamous 2011 PlayStation hack.

The Information Commissioner’s Office described the attack, which risked the personal information of 77 million customers, as a “serious breach of the Data Protection Act”.

Hackers gained access to customer names, addresses, dates of birth and passwords. Payment card details were also left “at risk”, the ICO described.

Sony has already said it “strongly disagreed” with the ICO’s ruling and plans to appeal, BBC business editor Steph McGovern wrote.

The ICO’s report concluded that the attack “could have been prevented” if Sony’s security had been up-to-date.

“If you are responsible for so many payment card details and log-in details then keeping that personal data secure has to be your priority. In this case that just didn’t happen,” said David Smith, deputy commissioner and director of data protection. “When the database was targeted – albeit in a determined criminal attack – the security measures in place were simply not good enough.

Source: Eurogamer