Based on the earlier post from Sony, it didn't seem as though the company intended to do anything regarding credit monitoring or other such services. In fact, SCEA said it wasn't sure that credit card information was stolen, which is perhaps its (attempted) out in terms of the free credit reporting service access that Blumenthal says the 75 million members of PSN should receive.

Meanwhile, the U.K.'s Information Commissioner Office (ICO) says it is looking into whether or not Sony was did enough to protect sensitive user information, and if the SCEA notified its customers in a timely manner. The ICO is a U.K. government agency that says on its website that its mission is "to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals." The ICO said:

"The Information Commissioner's Office takes data protection breaches extremely seriously. Any business or organization that is processing personal information in the UK must ensure they comply with the law, including the need to keep data secure."

In the first of what may be many lawsuits, Kristopher Johns, 36, of Birmingham, AL, filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He accused Sony of not taking "reasonable care to protect, encrypt, and secure the private and sensitive data of its users."

Update: Sony said that credit card data, but not personal data, was encrypted, in a new update posted late Wednesday. The company said:

The entire credit card table was encrypted and we have no evidence that credit card data was taken. The personal data table, which is a separate data set, was not encrypted, but was, of course, behind a very sophisticated security system that was breached in a malicious attack.