PlayStation Network working again after days offline due to cyber attack

Microsoft’s online gaming service Xbox Live also went down on Christmas Eve

Jon Stone
Saturday 27 December 2014 16:32 GMT
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PlayStation logo
PlayStation logo

Sony’s PlayStation Network online gaming service is finally working again after spending days offline due to an apparent cyber attack.

The network's official website changed its status from “offline” to “online” at around 3pm GMT today, meaning would-be gamers who received a PlayStation 4 for Christmas should finally be able to play online.

An update posted to a help article on the PlayStation website had read: “We are aware that some users are experiencing difficult logging onto the PSN. We will update this article with any changes that occur in regards to the issue. That you for your patience.”

In reality PSN services have been gradually restoring all morning and there may still be some residual issues for users.

PlayStation Network and its competitor Microsoft’s Xbox Live service stopped working on Christmas Eve after a reported cyber attack from the hacker group Lizard Squad.

Lizard Squad said on social media that it toppled both networks with so-called distributed denial of service attacks. The tactic involved overwhelming Sony and Microsoft’s servers with unexpected user traffic.

“Jingle bells jingle bells xbox got ran,” the group wrote on Twitter on Thursday, before posting a similar line about Sony. “oh my fun it is to troll of you morons ... hey!”

Lizard Squad had announced its attack in advance.

The group emerged earlier this year and became associated with a number of attacks on gaming networks according to US newspaper the Washington Post.

It claims to have attacked the PlayStation network in August and Xbox in early December. The group also struck RiotGames’ League of Legends and Blizzard’s Battle.net.

Microsoft said all of its “core services” were working as of this morning though it said some apps might still be having issues.

PlayStation is owned by Sony, the parent company of Sony Pictures, which was targeted by hackers over its release of the film The Interview. Microsoft is one of the companies which agreed to stream the film on its eventual release.

There has been speculation from cyber security experts that the two hacks might be linked.

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