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
south4
April 28th, 2011
3:12 pm
The hackers may not be able to hack microsoft but they can hack your 360. Also, for all of those who think the 360 doesnt have problems wait till you play black ops and you run into the modifiers. The 360 was down for a similar reason some time ago for 18 days to be exact so the grass is not always greener on the other side. I couldnt get a credit for it either. So pay to complain go right ahead!
Freightsgrl
April 28th, 2011
3:35 pm
I agree the 360 does have its problems and i owned 1 for about three yrs. then converted to ps3, because of the problems 360 had, BUT if you read the news now that many ppl had there accounts hacked and bills ran up to 2,000 bucks, shyt, sony looks like they gonna be bankrupt next, or out of business! therefore most likely im going back to 360. ill stick with sony for a while longer, but soon enough Sony is going to loose it all and that means 360 for everybody
Freightshaka
April 28th, 2011
3:55 pm
Lol Playstation fan since day 1. Playstation fan til the end. Sony needs to really do buisness better and for them to hide the fact that millions of account info including cc info had been comprimised for a week is not good for buisness at all. like my wife says sony will end up bankrupt and out of buisness this way. too bad sony,we really did enjoy the times we had but like all good things must come to an end. sony dont treat us fair enough but god forbid we do what we want with our consoles like jailbreak them. if i paid 600 bucks on something its MINE. ill do whatever i please with it and thats that. but when you got 12yr olds ruining the gaming experience with hack and glitches and jailbreaks for everyone and then this shyt? sony really need to do something better this time around i mean they should have had this done better from the start if your holding ppls private info then yea for this to be breach what was the security guard sleeping at the desk when we were breached? unacceptable for such a large company. if you ask me this is all to start charging customers to play online. its all to start having customers paying for subscriptions like the 360.
MEXICAN LOCO
April 28th, 2011
8:53 pm
esto esta feo vatos 7 dias sin NETWORK mejor me boi a comprar un XBOX jajajajajaja
Freightsgrl
April 28th, 2011
10:10 pm
English dude!
Drew
April 29th, 2011
10:29 pm
I want my black ops
Drew
April 29th, 2011
11:12 pm
So there’s a class action lawsuit aginst sony hmmm… I wounder if I can get in on it lol
awesome network
April 30th, 2011
12:12 am
you know whats funny i read all the post on every website and they all talk about sonys outlook or the hackers outlook not one time has anyone mention the people caught in the crossfire what about the ppl who have nothing to do with any of that have to suffer what that hacker did was virtual terrorism.
kris
April 30th, 2011
9:38 am
wow… so many ungrateful people. you dont pay to play online and yet you cry like babies when it goes down.. sony didnt plan it. Me: im getting my zombie fix on pc thru steam till ps3 comes back up. But moaning wont make it go faster.. just shows how many dorks have no lives.
for ouyr info
May 1st, 2011
12:24 am
Just so you know there are people who switch systems because sony offers free online play so people have the right to voice there opinion and not have to deal with verbal harassment on there view of whats going on with sonys network so people think b4 u put stupid comments on here if you dont you can sound real stupid.