> That $400k is nothing compared to the total cost. Sony reported an estimated outlay of $171M for insurance, customer support, and rebuilding their user management and security systems. Since the breach, partially due to a drop in customer confidence, Sony’s stock price has dropped from $30 to $13.<p>Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Part of the $172 million Sony reports includes "rebuilding their user management and security systems." But having satisfactory user management and security systems in the first place is what would have allowed them to avoid such an attack. It's not an <i>extra</i> cost from failing to engineer things correctly; it's the cost of engineering things correctly.
This is why we're storing important user credentials on a user's phone instead of all on a central server! (<a href="https://clef.io" rel="nofollow">https://clef.io</a>)