Sony hit with DDoS by self-proclaimed ISIS sympathizers

Sony's PlayStation Network, which connects PlayStation 3 and PS4 gaming consoles to the internet, suffered a large scale DDoS attack by a group called the Lizard Squad. The group took responsibility for the attack in a tweet - the group claims that the attack was in response to the US bombing ISIS terrorists in Iraq.




The trouble didn't end there for Sony - CEO, John Smedley was aboard an American Airlines flight to San Diego, CA., when the plane had to be diverted to Phoenix, AZ., due to a bomb threat from the same group on the same day. The FBI is now involved in the investigation, according to what a Sony representative tells Kotaku.

No explosive devices were found onboard.



Sony posted an update on the company's blog: The PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network are back online and people can now enjoy the services on their PlayStation devices. The networks were taken offline due to a distributed denial of service attack. We have seen no evidence of any intrusion to the network and no evidence of any unauthorized access to users’ personal information.

In light of today’s issue, the networks will not undergo the regularly scheduled maintenance, which was planned for Monday, August 25. We will provide an update shortly for when the maintenance will be rescheduled.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by this issue. Thanks for your patience and support.



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

We will continue to work towards fixing this issue and hope to have our services up and running as soon as possible.

We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.