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'External Intrusion' Cause Of PSN Outage, Hacker Group Denies Involvement
'External Intrusion' Cause Of PSN Outage, Hacker Group Denies Involvement
 

April 24, 2011   |   By Kris Graft

Comments 20 comments

More: Console/PC, Business/Marketing





Sony Computer Entertainment America this weekend said that an outside party has caused recent issues for PlayStation Network and Qriocity, resulting in Sony pulling down the online services.

"An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services," said Patrick Seybold, senior director of Corporate Communications and Social Media at SCEA in a PlayStation Blog post Friday.

He said the company turned off PlayStation Network and streaming content service Qriocity on Wednesday last week "In order to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward."

In a new update on Saturday, he added that the company is still working around the clock to fix the issues, and is updating the service's security measures. The company said PSN and Qriocity services "have been suspended" and didn't offer a firm date when they would resume normally.

"Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure," he said. "Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security."

Earlier this month, hacker collective Anonymous threatened Sony's network with a distributed denial of service attack in protest of the company's treatment of a group of PlayStation 3 hackers in court.

But the group claimed it halted its attack days later, postponing its efforts "until a method is found that will not severely impact Sony customers," the group said.

A new video message posted on Saturday, purportedly from the group, denied any involvement with the current outage. Sony's latest updates have not named Anonymous specifically as the group behind the attacks on PlayStation Network.

The video message stated, "A more likely explanation [for the outages] is that Sony is taking advantage of Anonymous' previous ill-will towards the company to distract users from the fact that the outage is actually an internal problem with the company's servers."
 
 
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Comments

Brad Borne
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Okay so what does Sony plan on doing about the new releases that have only been downloadable for one day out of the past 5? Will they just be buried next week?

Lyon Medina
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Careful words, but thank you Sony for the honesty.





Side note*



Happy Easter everyone

Matthew Chouinard
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The PSN has been down for days.

Thomas Lo
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I would hate to have to pay $5 a month for a service that doesn't even have actual game servers and is a glorified gamespy.



Now if you excuse me, I'm back to playing games on Steam.



i.e. **** you Microsoft fanboy.

kevin Koos
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Lo there are plently of loser sites to go flame your fanboy hate. Won't be missed here.

Cody Scott
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You mad bro?.... maybe you have been under a rock, but their are some pretty descent games for the 360 that use live quite well.

Justin Jackson
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Considering both my consoles just died within a week of each other ( PS3 & Xbox), i guess it's nice to see sh*t they make for themselves is liable to break as well. However I hardly think that Sony will make more money having to replace/fix their own gear rather than their usual tact of forcing their customers to buy another console after an update kills the BR-drive etc... and Xbox are no better either.

Kenneth Wesley
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I don't see how paying for the network could prevent a hack. Ask people who get hacked in Call of Duty on the Xbox 360 how happy they are for paying for their services.

Maurício Gomes
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The funny thing is that even THAT is fault of GeoHot.

Kenneth Barber
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I was all ready to buy "clash of heros". I'll forget about wanting to play it if this keeps up.

Daniel Gooding
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Not purchasing a product because of a network shortage will hurt the developer much more than it will hurt Sony.

Think about how much this is hurting developers already.

Kenneth Barber
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I was being a pessimist. I don't get to play much and tend to see things like this as signs from god that I need to be working on my own projects instead. I'll probably still purchase, it's just annoying.....

Tiago Costa
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STOP EVERYTHING!!! I've been playing CoH for the last 4 days and having around 20 hours already in it I have to say that you may be a fool for missing it... I LOVE the puzzle battles... simply LOVE THEM...



Chaining, Fusing, Walling... great game here...



Ok... so the PSN is down, thank god for sunny days here in Portugal.

Ujn Hunter
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Buy it on XBLA or the DS instead mate. Heck the DS game is the way to go!

Eric Geer
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Well...Netflix is still accessible from PSN--so if ya wanna stream movies...thats cool...you might get2-4 errors that you need to sign into PSN and can't, but it will eventually pop up in the background and then enjoy.



But honestly...I was really looking forward to some Mortal Kombat online--played the night it came out--then all was lost *tear*



Hope they get it up soon--this many days and its starting to look bad.

Matthew Chouinard
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no shit it goes down as soon as the good games comeout.

Robert Gill
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Hm...it's tough to say. I don't think Anon has done this, but I don't entirely believe Sony fabricated this.



Tough to say really. Funny thing is, I just switched to PS3 last week :P.

Matt K
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I understand it sucks to purchase a new game and have no chance to play it online, but if this is a huge issue for you, you need to take a step back and look at your situation. The only console I have is a PS3, but I've just taken this down time to enjoy some of the great single player games I missed or never finished. Finally finished Katamari Forever and Uncharted 1, getting started on Uncharted 2.

james sadler
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XBL has its issues, PSN has its issues, WiiWare has its issues. I'm not one to say one system is better than the other. I do prefer PSN as I don't play online much or do most of the Live stuff so paying money to do certain things bothers me with my Xbox. No one has mentioned yet that PSN is moving to the pay platform with the PSN Plus. Thats neither here nor there though.



I usually use PSN to look at new games that are coming out, download a demo or two, or buy an old PSX game. I normally don't have a lot of time to play games so I don't get to do this that often. Of course some of that free time came this weekend so I resorted to playing a game I started a long time ago and never finished, BioShock2. Actually I am very happy that I did since I am enjoying it, so in the end, thank you Sony. I just hope it is fixed this week since I will be buying a couple of new games.


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