Around 13:00 EST on Monday, The PlayStation Network suffered a major outage worldwide, Sony early confirmed that the network was “experiencing issues” and its status page showed that the problems were affecting all of its major services.
Sony didn’t provide further explanation about the PlayStation Network outage.
We’re aware that some users are having trouble accessing PSN. Thanks for your patience as we investigate. https://t.co/8hMUSl2cCe
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) 4 Gennaio 2016
The downtime lasted around ten hours before Sony restored its PlayStation Network.
The Play Station Network also suffered technical issues over the Christmas period, some users reported difficulties in authenticating the online services.
Now the hacking group Phantom Squad is claiming responsibility for a distributed denial of service attack that brought offline the entire Sony’s PlayStation Network on Monday. In a Tweet sent by the hackers they explicitly refer a problem affecting the PSN network.
“#psn #offline #off for some users. We are back for some action!” states a Tweet from the group.
Sony still has not released an official statement on the incident, the company announced it would offer extensions for PlayStation Plus, PlayStation Now and video rentals.
Thanks for your patience today – stay tuned for details on PS Plus, PS Now, and video rental extensions.
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) 5 Gennaio 2016
Gaming platform are a privileged target for hackers, last year the Lizard Squad hacking group took down at Christmas both Microsoft Xbox Live and PlayStation network (PSN) highlighting security issues affecting the services of Sony and Microsoft.
(Security Affairs – Sony PlayStation Network is down, Phantom Squad)