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By 9 May 2011 | Categories: news

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Sony's online gaming portal for the PS3, the PlayStation Network, remained down over the weekend, despite hopes that Sony would have the service restored.

The network remains crippled after attacks in April caused the personal information of some 77 million PSN users to be leaked, including in some cases bank account and credit card details. In addition, some 24 million Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) accounts were also infiltrated.

Sony has already pledged to compensate disgruntled users by way of free PSN rewards and an identity theft insurance package, and over the weekend this deal was sweetened yet again. Sony Europe spokesperson Nick Caplin stated that PSN members will be offered two free PS3 games as an apology, with PSP gamers also being offered two free titles.

“We will be offering PSN users the opportunity to select two PS3 games from a list of five, as well as offering PSP users the opportunity to choose two games from a list of four. We will let you know exactly what games are available soon,” he stated on the PlayStation blog.

Over the weekend Sony also discovered another leak related to the attack, finding 2 500 names and partial mailing addresses of customers posted on a website, the BBC reports.

The information was presumably placed their by hackers, with Sony immediately taking down the website. “The website was out-of-date and inactive when discovered as part of the continued attacks against Sony,” the company stated.

The leaked information is believed to have belonged to US customers who took part in a competition back in 2001.

And while it doesn't seem that much headway was made in relation to the PSN, Sony is apparently stepping up its efforts to locate those responsible.

According to CNET, citing an “anonymous source”, Sony may be planning to offer a monetary reward for information leading them to the hackers, although it may decide to not go ahead with the proposal.

Before going ahead with the plan the firm is seeking approval from Sony executives in Tokyo, and if given the company will work with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to try and track down the hackers.

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