More than three years ago, a crippling internet attack brought down Sony's PlayStation Network and interrupted service for more than a month. Legal showdowns ensued and today, people in the U.S. who used the company's online services can begin the process of getting their share of a $15 million settlement. Here's how.

Sony has abandoned its appeal of the fine assessed by the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office for negligence in the infamous 2011 breach of users' information that brought down all of PlayStation Network for more than a month.

Todd Miller is one of the men accused of being behind the 2008 PlayStation Network hacks. Last week he was sentenced to 12 months house arrest, but here's the thing: authorities couldn't prove he was involved.

Sony has just announced that it has detected someone trying to match "a massive set of sign-in IDs and passwords against our network database".

The law can be a strange beast sometimes. Take Sony and Australia, for example: earlier this year, when the PlayStation Network was hacked into, an investigation was launched targeting Sony, to see whether the company had broken Australian law.

Howard Stringer, the chief executive of Sony, said at a Berlin electronics show that the PlayStation Network has recovered from this spring's attack and 23-day outage by adding 3 million new users in the three months since.

The BlackHat USA security conference kicks off later today in Las Vegas, and will be attracting some of the world's top hackers and online security experts. As part of the festivities, every year an awards night is held called the "Pwnies".

While Sony's "Welcome Back" package smoothed over most people's concerns following the PlayStation network attacks in April and May, not everyone is won over. Some are taking Sony to court. And when I say some, I mean many.

Losing the entire PlayStation Network service for 23 days and its online marketplace for more than a month is not many people's idea of a good time. Nor is it Tim Schaff's, though the Sony Network Entertainment boss called it "a great experience," at a forum before, as the politicians say, he revised and extended his…

The time to collect your PlayStation Network welcome-back freebies has come and gone — twice, even — but Sony has extended one component. Registration for identity-theft protection will run through July 31, the company's top spokesman said on PlayStation's official blog.

All good things must come to an end, and after thirty days of offering PlayStation Network users free games and free access to PlayStation Plus, Sony has shut down its "Welcome Back" program.

At a shareholders' meeting in Tokyo today, Sony boss Sir Howard Stringer got up on stage and had to field questions about the recent PlayStation Network attacks, which resulted in one of the biggest thefts of personal details in the history of the internet.

A new lawsuit alleges that Sony fired workers in its network security operations two weeks before a cyberattack brought down the PlayStation Network.

In the throes of the 23-day PlayStation Network Outage, when people were vowing they'd sell their PS3s and go join Xbox Live, Microsoft's most provocative comment was a low-key prediction that it would see more traffic on its service. Yesterday, though, Xbox's senior executive finally said what's bad for the goose is…

EA Sports president Peter Moore brushed off the suggestion that the PlayStation Network outage did particular damage to his label, which has in the past two years seen significant revenue growth through its downloadable content, especially in its popular Ultimate Team offerings.

"Not yet", says HasSonyBeenHackedThisWeek.com. Well, there's always next week!

According to a report from Kyodo News, citing official Japanese government documentation, Sony Computer Entertainment knowingly delayed telling the public about the extent of an attack on its PlayStation Network so as not to "bewilder" its customers.

Spanish police this morning say they have arrested three involved in the hacking of Sony's Playstation Network, which lead to Sony shutting down the Playstation 3's network for a month, locking nearly 80 million gamers out of playing online.