According to the PlayStation blog, the 70 million users of Qriocity and PlayStation Network may have had their personal information compromised due to a successful hacker attack. Also the network has been shut down since April 20th and users have been unable to download content or play online.

The hacker attack resulted in personal information such as names, home addresses, e-mail addresses, birth dates and passwords being compromised, but the damage to credit card information has not yet been assessed.

“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.

It is however certain that although purchasing histories, answers to security questions, card expiration dates and billing addresses could have been stolen, the credit card security codes were kept safe.

Sony strongly advises its customers to place fraud alerts with their credit bureaus and periodically check their credit card statements.

As to the exact number of compromised accounts, the company refuses to comment, this general attitude raising spirits and angering users.

“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.

Apparently, the intrusion occurred between 17 and 19’th of April. On April 20, PlayStation and Qriocity networks have been shut down and continue to remain so until further notice, but according to some reports, the PS network my be down for another week.

If you are British and have been plotting to stalk a member of the British National Party (BNP) you might just have missed the opportunity. A list with all the party’s members, including names, addresses, and email addresses has recently shown up online. Some of those who just got exposed online are also underage (an extra “benefit” of the family plan BNP offers) and others had mentions of other personal details made public, such as job or hobbies.

As the Register puts it, “That’s how we know that that BNP members include receptionists, district nurses, amateur historians, pagans, line dancers and a male witch.” Members reacted pretty strongly, filing their comments with courses and outrage. As certain professions in the UK are expected to have no political color, they might even lose their job and according to several blog sources, some pretty powerful people in the BNP are to blame for the leak.

BNP spokespersons found out of the leak from the Register, but although completely unaware, they promised to treat whoever is responsible quite harshly!

According to the latest data released by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, damages caused by online fraud have significantly increased, going up by 20 percent.

The report cited by SecurityFocus shows that, while the number of complaints has been a little lower, the reported damage originated from online fraud grew from $198 million in 2006 to $239 million in 2007. FBI’s IC3 online portal where cybercrime complaints are received processed a little under 207,000 such reports last year, just a few less than in 2006. The criminal activity is in no way discriminatory, affecting victims aged from 10 to 100 years old.

“The Internet presents a wealth of opportunity for would-be criminals to prey on unsuspecting victims, and this report shows how extensive these types of crime have become,” James E. Finch, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said in a statement. “What this report does not show is how often this type of activity goes unreported.”

While the media reports often on the crime of identity theft, the largest number of people, more than a third, complain about online auction fraud, the IC3 report stated. Other online crimes, such as industrial espionage by other nation states, largely go unreported. Earlier this month, the Council of Europe requested that Internet service providers help battle cybercrime by sharing information about their users.