PSN down due to "external intrusion," no news on fix, credit card security

More than 72 hours after it first went down, the PlayStation Network is still offline, annoying millions of loyal PlayStation 3 customers who can't play their games over the network. No Portal 2 co-op, no Mortal Kombatmatches, no Home. Your PlayStation 3 is offline. In an update over the weekend, Sony's Patrick Seybold confirmed that the outage is due to one or more hackers attacking the system. Here's the full statement.

An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. In order to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward, we turned off PlayStation Network & Qriocity services on the evening of Wednesday, April 20th. Providing quality entertainment services to our customers and partners is our utmost priority. We are doing all we can to resolve this situation quickly, and we once again thank you for your patience. We will continue to update you promptly as we have additional information to share.The good news? Games can still update! I'm in the process of installing three different updates for a game that's not out yet. As you can see, I'm all about looking on the bright side of these situations.

It also seems that this outage has caused Sony to beef up security. "Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure," Seybold wrote in yet another update. "Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security."

That's all well and good, but the system has been down for days, Sony has confirmed that it is under malicious attack, and the PlayStation Network has access to my credit card information. Wouldn't it be great to know if that information is secure? It would also be nice if we had some kind of estimated time on when we will be able to play our online games again. Yes, the PlayStation Network is a free service, but pointing that out seems like an excuse. Gamers expecting to be able to play their games online, especially on a holiday weekend, are bound to be upset. This isn't just a case of getting what you pay for.

The utter lack of transparency is galling. Will we be able to play online soon? Do we need to cancel our credit cards? Answers to these questions would be wonderful.