By James Brightman

PlayStation Network could ultimately cost Sony a massive amount of money. PS3 initially cost Sony an extraordinary amount to R&D and manufacture, but this PSN crisis is potentially far worse financially.

According to the Ponemon Institute, a data-security research firm, the estimated cost of a data breach involving a malicious or criminal act averaged $318 per compromised record in 2010 (that's up 48% from 2009). Factoring in about 77 million PSN accounts, the grand total of the PlayStation Network breach could be more than $24 billion.

"Simply put, [this is] one of the worst breaches we've seen in several years," added Josh Shaul, chief technology officer for Application Security Inc., a New York-based company that is one of the country's largest database security software makers.