Sony said at the weekend it had removed from the internet the names and partial addresses of 2500 sweepstakes contestants that had been stolen by hackers and posted on a website, and said it did not know when it could restart its PlayStation video games network.

The company, under fire since hackers accessed personal data from about 100 million user accounts of its PlayStation Network and PC-based online gaming services, said in a statement details posted on the inactive website also included three unconfirmed email addresses.

The data came from customers who entered a 2001 product sweepstakes contest. The list did not include information on credit cards, social security numbers or passwords.

"The website was out of date and inactive when discovered as part of the continued attacks on Sony," Sony said, adding that the company took the website down shortly after finding out about the postings on Thursday, US time.

Sony chief executive officer Howard Stringer apologised on Friday to users of the firm's PlayStation Network and other online services, breaking his silence on the massive data breach.