As the prolonged outage of the PlayStation Network and Qriocity enters its fourth day the latest update on the PlayStation blog offers some insight on the steps being taken to restore service but no indication when that might happen. Sony senior director corporate communication and social media Patrick Seybold writes:

We sincerely regret that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have been suspended, and we are working around the clock to bring them both back online. Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure. Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.

We thank you for your patience to date and ask for a little more while we move towards completion of this project. We will continue to give you updates as they become available.

Following on the news that the PlayStation Network had been hacked, a complete rebuild does not come as a shock. Doing so before bringing it back online, though, does underscore the severity of the intrusion to Sony's network.

For the moment, Sony gets a pass on the lack of more detailed information with it being a holiday weekend and an ongoing sensitive situation as the necessary repairs are made. In this coming week, though, the extremity of this response demands that a full disclosure of the nature of the issues be given. In particular, subscribers need to know what, if any, threats their online wallet and credit card information may have been exposed to.

Our sympathies go out to all the engineers and their families who instead of enjoying the Easter holiday weekend are under the gun to get the PlayStation Network rebuilt.