Sony PlayStation Network back online after DDOS attack

25 Aug 2014

The Sony PlayStation 4

Sony has confirmed that its PlayStation Network is back online after falling victim to a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack.

The attack, apparently by a group calling itself the Lizard Squad, no doubt brought up painful memories of the massive attack on the gaming network in 2011, when more than 100m users’ personal data was hacked.

“We have seen no evidence of any intrusion to the network and no evidence of any unauthorised access to users’ personal information,” the company’s senior manager in charge of social media Sid Shuman said.

The latest attack by Lizard Squad occurred early Sunday morning and Sony reacted by taking the PlayStation Network offline.

“Like other major networks around the world, the PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network have been impacted by an attempt to overwhelm our network with artificially high traffic,” Shuman said.

“Although this has impacted your ability to access our network and enjoy our services, no personal information has been accessed.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com