Sony may be mostly recovered from the PSN disaster at this point (although Japan is not back up yet), but many investors still want answers and they're none too pleased with Sony boss Sir Howard Stringer. Panoptic Management Consultants' Asif Khan, writing for IndustryGamers already suggested that Stringer may need to go, and now at a recent shareholders' meeting, it would appear some would agree.
According to Reuters, "Stringer did not respond directly when another shareholder asked him to step down to allow the company to make a fresh start after what is believed to be the world's biggest ever Internet security breach."
Instead, Stringer attempted to explain why Sony may have been attacked while also noting that hacking has become a major problem for companies worldwide and is not just a Sony issue. Stringer commented, "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."
This is most likely a reference to Sony's removal of OtherOS from PS3, which infuriated some in the hacking community, and the company's lawsuit against hacker George Hotz for copyright infringement and circumventing PS3's protection while sharing information on the Internet that would enable gamers to run self-created software. Hotz reportedly has since landed a job at Facebook as a software engineer.
Stringer continued, "I think you see 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."
Sony's stock was flat on Tuesday and its share price has fallen about 16 percent since April 26, which is the day before the company revealed the PSN attack.
