Sony Online Entertainment has been the latest victim in yet another illicit hack, which may have evented in information from 24.6 million SOE user accounts being stolen. A press release issued by Sony Online Entertainment states that "hackers may have stolen SOE customer information on April 16th and 17th, 2011 (PDT)," from its database in California, adding to the many woes already being experienced by Sony with its PlayStation Network.

Naturally, Sony is having to spring into action to fix the ongoing problems with PSN, Qriocity and now the breach of SOE accounts: "With the current outage of the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services and the ongoing investigation into the recent attacks, SOE had also undertaken an intensive investigation into its system. Upon discovery of this additional information, the company promptly shut down all servers related to SOE services while continuing to review and upgrade all of its online security systems in the face of these unprecedented cyber-attacks."

Sony is working with the FBI to get to the bottom of the spate of cyber-attacks that have severly compromised its online services, and while PSN users will be getting 30 days of free PS Plus subscription and other free content by way of an apology, SOE account holders will be given similar compensation with its 'make good' plan.

This entails 30 free days of SOE membership, as well as compensating each subscriber with a day's free membership for each day the service is down. The 'make good' plan will also offer users free content for SOE titles like DC Universe Online, including items for the game's heroes and villains.

Sony has said that it hopes to resume PSN and Qriocity services this week with a 'Welcome Back' Appreciation Program. For the SOE security press release in its entirety, visit the EU PlayStation Blog.