“DHS’ U. S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team [US-CERT] is working with law enforcement, international partners and Sony to assess the situation,” spokesman Chris Ortman told NextGov. US-CERT is part of the National Cyber Security Division in the department, and coordinates a response to security threats.

Homeland Security will also join the FBI and 22 other US State Attorneys Generals in investigating the matter.

Also joining in investigating Sony’s attack (in a separate investigation) is the Australian Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, who announced on Thursday that his office will be investigating the attack.

“I am very concerned by news reports that hackers have stolen data from users of the Sony PlayStation Network. Our Office is contacting Sony seeking further information about this matter and we will be opening an own motion investigation,” he said in a comment.

“When such breaches occur it is important that organisations notify their customers promptly. This is an important step in helping to mitigate any potential impact on individuals such as the risk of identity theft and fraud.”

The news also comes with a report that Sony’s data breach could also affect credit card lenders. According to Reuters, analysts are predicting that Sony’s attack could cost them $300 million in order to replace credit cards that were taken in the attack. This is based on a price of replacing cards of US$3 to US$5, which includes postage, customer service costs and the card itself.

Sony’s PlayStation Network was abruptly taken down on April 21 – just before the Easter Weekend – and this week Sony confirmed that data was compromised in a security breach. The data includes users’ name, addresses, country, email address, birthdate and your credit card information – including billing address, and purchase history – have been obtained during the unauthorised intrusion.

Chris Ogle, from Whangerei, plugged in the MP3 to his computer and found 60 files in total. Among the information, he found lists of soldiers based in Afghanistan, and mobile phone numbers for soldiers based overseas. It has been confirmed, by TVNZ, to be active numbers.

In November of last year, the US Defence Department banned the use of portable data storage devices.

The release of its contents, however, is “prohibited” by US federal law. The US Army and the American Embassy in New Zealand have not commented on the TVNZ’s story.

It had previously admitted that it had lost 347, but had to revise that number after "anomalies in the reporting process" were discovered. Merseyside police is reported to be investigating the situation.

Source: The Guardian

Paul Gray, the chairman of the Revenue and Customs department, has resigned over the scandal. Treasury chief Alistair Darling revealed that the disks were not tracked and were missing for three weeks before alarms were raised.

The disks contained data of names of parents and children, their addresses, date of birth, national insurance numbers and banking details. “I regard this as an extremely serious failure,” Mr Darling told lawmakers in the House of Commons.

Mr. Darling has also said that there was no evidence that the data has fallen into the hands of criminals and police were involved in the hunt for the disks.

“I profoundly regret and apologise for the inconvenience and worries that have been caused to millions of families,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the House of Commons. “We have a duty to do everything that we can to protect the public.” He has ordered a review into the scandal.

A computer program was used to access the employers’ section using stolen data. Symantec, which warned Monster about the attack, said that “the log-ins were used to harvest user names, e-mail addresses, home addresses and phone numbers, which were uploaded to a remote web server.”