Sony recently confirmed that nearly 7,000 of its present and former employees were affected by two major data breaches earlier this year. The breaches happened due to a weakness in the MOVEit Transfer software used by the company.

Here's the lowdown on what happened, broken down in a simple way:

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), one of Sony's divisions, was informed last week that their data had been infiltrated. A cyber hacking group called CL0P took responsibility for the breach, admitting that they exploited a flaw in the MOVEit's system to steal data, which was reported by a user back in June.

Interestingly, two breaches took place. The first one on May 28, before anyone was notified about the problem, and the second on June 2 when Sony detected unauthorized downloads happening. As a result, they shut down the platform to fix the issue.

So, how is Sony dealing with this cyber mess-up? Well, they have started to contact those affected and offered them credit monitoring and identity restoration services through Equifax. Each individual gets a unique voucher code, which will work till February of 2024.

This data violation is one of the biggest faced by Sony in recent times, almost comparable to the infamous PlayStation network hack of 2011 where 77 million user accounts were affected. In the meantime, the company continues to address the issue and ensure a safer cyber environment for its employees and users.

Don't forget to keep your personal data secure, folks! Even big companies like Sony can fall victim to cyber attacks.