Day 6: Sony PlayStation Network down due to hackers
[Updated story: Sony admits hackers have stolen user info]
It’s been almost a full week and the PlayStation Network is still down.
The network, which has been down since Wednesday and allows 75 million users to play games with friends over the Internet, went down several times in February and March. The network is also used to deliver downloadable games and other static media. Sony’s Qriocity (pronounced “curiousity”) service, which provides streaming video, music and games, is also down.
Sony has not explained what happened exactly, but hackers are apparently behind the recent outage.
Take that hackers!
Late Friday, Sony said “An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network … .”
External intrusion = Attack by hackers.
When will online gaming resume? Late Monday, a Sony spokesman said “I don’t have an update or timeframe to share at this point in time.”
Protecting the network from hackers has been a lot more difficult than Sony first predicted. Thursday night, Sony said it might only take a full day or two.
Saturday, Sony said “we are working around the clock to bring [the network] online. Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure. Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.”
The hacking group Anonymous, which some had thought may be behind Sony’s problems, say it’s not them. On the group’s Facebook page someone wrote, “ATTENTION: For everyone coming here complaining about the PSN or inquiring about it, We Do Not Know What Happened. This is not the work of Anonymous.”
Sony’s problems are also unrelated to Amazon’s crash, which has crippled many popular websites and online services including Reddit, Foursquare, Quora and Hootsuite.
This is a big blow, especially through the long holiday weekend. Some games can only be played online, and many of the more popular games, such as the “Call of Duty” series, usually have hundreds of thousands of players logging into online firefights.
So, hang up your M16 there won’t be any “Call of Duty” deathmatches until Sony fixes this thing.
As someone says below, sometimes “you get what you don’t pay for.” Time to fire up the Xbox 360.
* Check the PlayStation blog for the latest updates.
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1,922 comments Add your comment
happy helper
April 25th, 2011
10:38 pm
you can still watch netflix just go to netflix and sign in then when it ask for u to sign in again do it by that time netflix will be loaded
Nate
April 25th, 2011
10:41 pm
Honestly, Im an XBox360 owner and also a fan of the PS3. Im looking this up because Im a game developer myself and want to keep informed on what were up against. Anyway, for all of you PS3 owners here having a hard time with the down time, play some single-player games. I hold PS3 MUCH higher than XBox360 in the single player aspect whole-heartedly. If you have the backwards compatible PS3 fire it up and play some good old fashioned Shadow of the Colossus
Sony’s doing what they can to make it more secure. PS2 is still one of the best consoles ever made in my eyes 
Nate
April 25th, 2011
10:46 pm
A side note. Sony has more experience in the single player realm than Microsoft does. They were around when online was not. Find yourselves some single-player games to beat in the mean-time. Microsoft is just as susceptible as Sony, Sony was just unlucky. For everyone that reads this, everything is hackable no matter how secure it is. It just makes it more difficult, but younger audiences getting more tech-savvy it is a hard battle. Nowadays that person hacking your network can be a 9 year old kid.
Tech Geek Dad » Sony Playstation network down for several days
April 25th, 2011
11:40 pm
[...] to another report the outage could affect 75 million players. It even jokes that you’ll have to hang up your [...]
jskills19
April 26th, 2011
12:03 am
Wow , i just cant stand hackers , why dont they go hack another system! We are very sorry about this interruption , please fixed this problem and make a security update which allows no more hackers ok.. All of us appreciate and are amaze about the work ya’ll done to make this network exciting!.
spoonerisms
April 26th, 2011
2:01 am
Enter your comments here
big dog
April 26th, 2011
5:07 am
Hopefully enough fools switch to 360 and playstation loses enough money to one up the Microsoft losers. And hopefully 360 jacks up all their prices so they get screwed while we sit n laugh and play free online play!! Unfortunately this is highly unlikely it would b sweet karma. But foreal the nerds
big dog
April 26th, 2011
5:08 am
At sony need to pick up the pace
simon
April 26th, 2011
9:10 am
is anybobys workin because its been like 5 days omg
hallowpointak47
April 26th, 2011
10:16 am
ok what is the time limit on fixing the error the only game’s i play is modern war fare and black ops so what is the solution i think its time to switch over to the x box 360 it is problem free and it is very dependable. sony better step up their tech support skills. iam one of those who had just baught my ps3 and now this shi* happend thanks sony for fuccing with my money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!