How was your weekend? Upset you weren’t able to play online on your PlayStation devices? At least you didn’t get a bomb threat.
Despite the excellent year so far that Sony has been having with the unparalleled success of the PS4, they have run across a few bumps. Granted, this has nothing to do with poor decisions or planning, but with hacks & bomb threats instead.
The PlayStation Network was hit by a series of DdoS (distributed denials of service) attacks which made it inaccessible to a huge portion of the gaming ecosystem. Note, this is different from a hack where actual data is obtained from customers or the service themselves, and all it did was preventing gamers from enjoying their preferred online experiences.
Gamers & users who attempted to log-in into PSN were greeted by a message claiming the service was down for maintenance, well ahead of the scheduled time. Apparently, these hackers did not only attack Sony, but other online services such as Blizzard Entertainment, League of Legends and Path of Exile.
So far, so good. Hackers do these type of attacks to point out how vulnerable a system is, to call attention for whichever reason (in this case, it was because of Sony’s “corporate greed”), or even just for fun. Yet, things quickly escalated once the same hacking group tweeted a bomb threat for a mid-flight airplane of American Airlines which was carrying John Smedley, the president of Sony Online Entertainment. The plane was eventually diverted from San Diego to Phoenix, quickly changing the issue from minor, annoying hack to threats and terrorism.
Sony has yet to provide an official answer explaining when the service will be restored, and have only clarified that it’s “being adressed“.
Via Shacknews
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