Sony has been on the unlucky side of hacker attacks this month. In addition to the now notorious Sony Pictures, Inc. attack, the company is also facing a PlayStation video game network attack. According to the company, the PlayStation network was hacked on Christmas Day, and the company is still working to fix the hack.
The Hack Problem
Thanks to the recent PlayStation hack, network users are experiencing a myriad of problems with the PlayStation network. This has proven difficult for Sony, since the company is still trying to fix the errors and network issues without any real progress so far. The PlayStation network is still largely offline, though Sony engineers are currently working on the issue.
More than fifty million people currently use the Sony network worldwide, though Sony hasn’t yet stated how many of those people have been impacted by the hack. While Sony has been issuing apologies to customers, these messages do little in the way of appeasing network users that can no longer access the PlayStation network.
Placing the Blame
A hacker group that calls itself the “Lizard Squad” has claimed responsibility for the recent PlayStation hack. The group has been targeting Sony for some time now, and even managed to stop an airplane carrying a Sony executive earlier this year by calling in a bomb threat to American Airlines while the flight was in progress.
The Lizard Squad appears to have a direct problem with Sony and its products, and so far Sony is the only company that the hacker group has directly targeted. Previous Sony Pictures attacks were originally attributed to the North Korean Government, and its unclear whether or not the current PlayStation attacks have anything to do with the Sony Pictures attack, though a connection does seem likely.
What You Can Do
Sony has been asking PlayStation network users to be patient, though many users have responded to tweets from the company with frustrated and angry responses. While Sony claims that the company’s engineer team is working on fixing the problems, exact steps that the company is taking haven’t been outlined yet, though this is clearly what PlayStation users would like to hear from Sony - were the company to detail a plan, users might be put at ease.
Sony is on the third day of working to fix the network problems without any real progress so far. The Lizard Squad hackers have claimed responsibility for earlier PSN attacks, and it appears that Sony hasn’t quite figured out how to avoid those (and future) attacks yet. While none of this is good news to the millions of people the use the PlayStation network, Sony does hope to have the problem resolved shortly - the more time the company loses, the more PlayStation network users look elsewhere, it seems.
If you do use the PlayStation network, there’s nothing that can be done at the moment, and the network remains offline. For updates, Twitter is your best bet, but right now you’ll just get the “we’re working on it” message.