The Sony PlayStation Network (PSN) is now finally back online, after suffering outages caused by a nasty hack attack the past few days.
For those unfamiliar with the issue, the PlayStation network was brought down on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, by a hack attack. A hacking group called Lizard Squad took credit for the hit, and Sony has since been struggling to get its services back up and running. The PlayStation network has roughly 110 million users worldwide and the blow came at a crucial time, as many gamers would have accessed the network around Christmas.
Nevertheless, the PSN was down for several days, but it's now up and running properly. On Sunday, Dec. 28, Sony assured users that it had resolved all issues and the system was functioning as it should.
It's also worth pointing out that Sony's announcement marks the first time the company admitted that a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack was behind the disruptions, flooding the PlayStation servers with traffic until bringing it down altogether.
"PlayStation Network is back online," Sony announced in a company blog post. "As you probably know, PlayStation Network and some other gaming services were attacked over the holidays with artificially high levels of traffic designed to disrupt connectivity and online gameplay. This may have prevented your access to the network and its services over the last few days."
"Thanks again for your support and patience," adds the blog post.
In addition to Sony's PlayStation Network, Microsoft's Xbox Live infrastructure was attacked as well, and the same hacking group took credit for the attack. Unlike PSN, however, Microsoft solved the issues sooner and the Xbox online infrastructure was up and running again by Boxing Day.
As for the hacking group apparently responsible for bringing down the online gaming networks, Lizard Squad first drew public attention back in August, when it claimed credit for a previous DDoS attack targeting the PlayStation network. The same group was also reportedly involved in a bomb scare that diverted a place carrying a Sony executive. Lizard squad was founded in mid-2013 and has gained lots of attention with its recent attacks, while also highlighting security issues of the systems they targeted.
Lastly, it's worth noting that some users were still having some issues signing in on Sunday, Dec. 28, so the service may still not be accessible to all, despite Sony's reassuring. If you're experiencing trouble signing in even now, drop by our comment section below and tell us all about it.
