News

PlayStation Network reportedly attacked, hacking group takes responsibility

Sony’s PlayStation Network has been pulled offline prematurely ahead of its scheduled maintenance period tomorrow and it looks as if it may be for a more sinister reason than initially anticipated. 

As of right now, gamers across the globe are getting error messages (NW-31456-9) and/or indefinite loading periods whilst trying to access PlayStation Network with an external DDoS attack likely to be the culprit.

A DDoS attack is an intentional disruption or denial-of-service from a machine (in this case PlayStation) or network to its intended user base – a common tactic deployed by hacking communities on specific targets.

Lizard Squad, an online hacking group, has taken responsibility on Twitter for the spate of attacks which hasn’t just affected PlayStation users but also Blizzard’s Battle.net servers and Riot’s League of Legends.

Their motives are addressed in the below Tweet and seem to stem from their view that Sony hasn’t addressed security concerns stringently enough since its infamous outage over three years ago.

At this time there hasn’t been an official word from Sony but you’ll be the first to know once any updates surface.

Check back with PSU in the coming hours and in the meantime give us your thoughts in the comments section below.