Sony’s PlayStation Network came under a DDoS attack early Sunday morning along with other gaming services like Blizzard’s Battle.net and League of Legends. The latter are back up and running as of the time of this article, but PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 owners are still affected by the attack on PSN servers.
Sony originally planned to bring the PlayStation Network down for maintenance on Monday. This current outage is not part of that.
A group or individual calling itself the “Lizard Squad” is taking credit for the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. It’s not fair to call the group hackers since systems are not being breached as an attempt to steal data. Instead, they are simply flooding the servers for various online services with more traffic than they can handle.
The outages started late Saturday evening Eastern Time with an attack on AT&T before the Lizard Squad moved on to League of Legends. They started by harassing a female Twitch streamer named Kaceytron and initiating DDoS attacks on games they were playing and followed their attacks as she moved from Hearthstone to Diablo III and eventually attacked Comcast to cause her to go offline.
They then begin hitting other Twitch streamers, and the games they were playing such as Path of Exile and brought down all of Battle.net.
For whatever reason, they got bored with attacking those services and turned to attacking PlayStation Network. It appears that Sony was able to get the PSN servers up for a while before stating, “We’re attempting to slam Sony back into the ground.”
This is the message in the current pinned Tweet by Lizard Squad.
Sony, yet another large company, but they aren’t spending the waves of cash they obtain on their customers’ PSN service. End the greed.
— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014
The DDoS attack led to condemnation of Lizard Squad from people affected by the various services being brought down.
PSN hackers should get 20 years to life for ruining my lazy sunday — Ruthless (@RuthlessNL) August 24, 2014
I don’t care if I’m a girl I’ll still play playstation, but some idiots taken down the servers! Get a life #psn #playstationnetwork
— Lozziieeexx (@Green_Bean98) August 24, 2014
http://t.co/92NGfRepiO, PSN and others got hit with a massive DDoS last night. That’s not even hacking, that’s just a war on fun. #lame — jason bergman (@jasonxbergman) August 24, 2014
At the time this article was posted, I’ve been unable to log into PSN through my PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 3. If you’re having problems starting a game to even play a single-player mode, you can disconnect the console from your home network so that you don’t get stuck trying to connect to PSN.
How has the DDoS attack on PlayStation Network, Battle.net and other games affected you? Sound off in the comments below.
Update: As of 1:25 p.m. EDT, PSN is still down. The official Playstation Twitter Support account posted the following message.
We are aware that PSN is currently down – please try again later. Thanks for your patience as we look into this!
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) August 24, 2014
Meanwhile, to show just how bizarre this attack has become, Lizard Squad is claiming that it will not cease the attack on the Playstation Network until the bombing of ISIS, the group terrorizing Iraq by beheading and crucifying those that don’t conform to their brand of Islamic ideology, stops.
Kuffar don’t get to play videogames until bombing of the ISIL stops. #ISIL #PSN #ISIS
— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014
Today we planted the ISIS flag on @Sony‘s servers #ISIS #jihad pic.twitter.com/zvqXb2f5XI
— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014
Update 2: In an even more bizarre move, Lizard Squad is Tweeting out fake bomb threats to American Airlines in an attempt to get John Smedley’s plane grounded. Smedley is the President of Sony Online Entertainment.
.@AmericanAir We have been receiving reports that @j_smedley‘s plane #362 from DFW to SAN has explosives on-board, please look into this.
— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014
— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014
This individual or individuals behind Lizard Squad must not be aware that this this can get them arrested. CNN reported on a Dutch teen arrested in April for Tweeting a fake bomb threat to American Airlines.
Update 3: SOE President John Smedley’s flight that was bound for San Diego has been redirected to Phoenix and Lizard Squad is bragging about it with video from the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. This is nothing short of unbelievable.
Look’s like @j_smedley‘s flight is being redirected, we call upon all Lizards to #PrayForFlight362. pic.twitter.com/J9xAZEPSJT
— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014
.@j_smedley https://t.co/7BxJa1s92y #PrayForFlight362
— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014
Update 4: In another bizarre twist, it may not be Lizard Squad doing the DDoS attack on PSN servers. Another individual called FamedGod claims that they are behind the attacks on Sony.
Why must someone take credit of ones work? LizardSquad couldnt hurt a fly. Decrypting a memory dump and finding the server was all my work.
— Fame (@FamedGod) August 24, 2014
They ominously say they are setting their sights on Xbox next.
Xbox is Next. #ProjectMicro
— Fame (@FamedGod) August 24, 2014
Update 5: Smedley gave the following update after his America Airlines flight was diverted to Phoenix and searched.
Yes. My plane was diverted. Not going to discuss more than that. Justice will find these guys.
— John Smedley (@j_smedley) August 24, 2014
Update 6: Playstation Support just posted the following update regarding the Playstation Network.
Sony Network Ent. has reported that PSN service is returning, but you may experience slowness or login issues as the network stabilizes.
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) August 25, 2014
[Image via PlayStation Network (edited)]