Hackers have targeted Sony’s gaming site as the electronic major believes that it tried to protect its intellectual property, according to CEO Howard Stringer.
Sony has been grilled for its security breach by hackers in April, who have accessed personal details of 77 million users on PlayStation Network and Qriocity, reported Reuters.
About 90% of the affected users are from North America or Europe.
The company admitted that hackers have been able to steal credit card details of the affected users. It had a severe blow on the plans of Sony to combine content and hardware products via online services, with further attacks in May and this month.
Speaking at a shareholders meeting, Stringer said, "We believe that we first became the subject of attack because we tried to protect our IP (intellectual property), our content, in this case videogames."
Hackers have also carried out cyber attacks on other big firms, including defense contractor Lockheed Martin and Google.
Hacker George Hotz was sued by Sony for copyright infringement and circumventing PlayStation 3’s protection schemes, and settled the charges against Hotz on 11 April.
He posted information that was claimed to help gamers to run self-created applications on their consoles and make pirating games easier, reported Reuters.
Stringer was quoted by Reuters as saying that he thinks that cyber terrorism is now a global force, affecting many more companies than just Sony.
"If hackers can hack Citibank, the FBI and the CIA, and yesterday the video game company Electronics Arts, then it’s a negative situation that governments may have to resolve," Stringer said.
