New Sony cyberattack in the offing?

Yesterday, Sony announced the PlayStation Network was in "final testing" before coming back online. Unfortunately, according to a report on GameSpot sister site CNET, the service's return may coincide with a new attack from hackers.

According to "an observer" of the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel used by the hackers, the upcoming "major" attack will occur sometime this weekend. The hackers are apparently some of the same ones who broke into the PlayStation Network two weeks ago, and they plan to make public at least some of the information they stole. This could potentially include names, addresses, and even credit card numbers, the source told CNET.

If the rumored attack materializes, it would mark the third such assault on Sony properties in just over a month. In early April, the collective known as Anonymous engaged in denial-of-service attacks on a variety of Sony sites in retaliation for its legal action against PlayStation 3 hacker George "GeoHot" Hotz. (The lawsuit has since been settled.)

Then came the "external intrusion" between April 17 and 19, which brought down the PlayStation Network to this day. Earlier this week, Sony admitted that the intrusion allowed unidentified parties to make off with the personal data of all 77 million PSN users. Some 12.3 million PSN users' credit card info was also potentially exposed, including some 5.6 million accounts in the US. However, most major credit card companies have reported no fraudulent activity related to the data breach.