Sony has admitted and confirmed that some of the credit and debit card data on its PlayStation Network for videogame players were stolen. Therefore, customers must take action in checking their accounts with their banks.

"On May 1st we concluded that the Sony Online Entertainment customer data account information may have been stolen and we are notifying you as soon as possible," said the company said in an online update.

It retracted an earlier statement and had now confirmed that some 24.6 million SOE accounts and from an outdated database containing people's financial data, according to engineers and security consultants investigating the breach of Sony's online network.

About 12,700 credit or debit card numbers, along with expiration dates, belonging to people outside the United States may have been stolen along with 10,700 direct debit records of customers in Austria, Germany, Netherlands, and Spain, according to Sony.

"We will be notifying each of these customers promptly," the Japanese consumer electronics giant promised. SOE is based in the Southern California city of San Diego.

On Sunday, Japan's Sony executives have formally apologised for the security breach of some of its 77 million customers connected to its PlayStation Network and vowed to put up more firewalls to avoid similar future incidents.

"We deeply apologize for the inconvenience we have caused," said Mr Kazuo Hirai, chief of Sony Corp's PlayStation video game unit, who was among the three executives who held their heads low for several seconds at the company's Tokyo headquarters in the traditional style of a Japanese apology.

The Japanese officials admitted that vital security measures are lacking and are still assessing the company's network services to avoid future hacking of the system.

Regulators are now preparing possible sanctions on Sony because of the security breach exposing its customers to credit card theft.

The company is probing the extent of the data theft and hasn't found evidence that information on 10 million registered credit cards has been leaked, it said in a statement yesterday.

He noted that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is helping in the investigation of the group of hackers, who are also after the systems of Google Inc, Walt Disney Co, and Johnson & Johnson.

Mr Hirai cited the involvement of a suspected group of hacker- activists known as 'Anonymous' after the company sued George Hotz for posting online information about how to install alternative operating systems for the PS 3 game console.

The Anonymous group issued a separate statement denying responsibility for the PlayStation Network disruption, while saying some of its members might be behind it.