Although PSN maintenance was confirmed for tomorrow, PSN in its entirety appears to be down at the moment, with any attempt to access the service showing the NW-31456-9 error code.
“Cannot connect to the server within the time limit.” reads the warning, and that may suggest a DDoS attack where the server is overloaded with requests, preventing users from accessing the services. The group responsible appears to be LizardSquad, who are claiming on twitter that they did this to end Sony’s greed.
https://twitter.com/LizardSquad/status/503488179651878912
PSN being attacked in such a way isn’t something new – it happened a few years ago which led to the service being down for weeks, preventing people from getting online and playing their games. If that happens again, it’s going to be a huge blow for Sony. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope they get it back online soon and this doesn’t happen again.
UPDATE: Sony have confirmed that the network is down due to a DDoS attack rather than a hack.
Like other major networks around the world, the PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network have been impacted by an attempt to overwhelm our network with artificially high traffic.
Although this has impacted your ability to access our network and enjoy our services, no personal information has been accessed.
We will continue to work towards fixing this issue and hope to have our services up and running as soon as possible.
We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.
Blizzard, Battle.net, Riot Games and other sites have also been hit by the attack. The group also posted a tweet to American Airlines reporting a bomb on an aircraft, resulting in the flight being diverted. I suspect they will be getting a visit from the authorities quite soon.
Of course the internet being what it is, some have seen the more amusing side of the problem.
Out now on PS4: “PSN Outage: Remastered.” It is a remake of the classic PSN Outage of 2011, except now in glorious 1080p and 60FPS
— Ex-CEO Kaz Hirai (@KazHiraiCEO) August 24, 2014
UPDATE #2: Apparently it’s not the LizardSquad, it is some other muppet and the reptiles are taking credit. Not that anyone cares.
UPDATE #3: The FBI are now investigating the bomb threats posted by LizardSquad to American Airlines Flight 362, the aircraft carrying John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment.
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 #4: In the wee hours of the morning, PSN began to come back up and appears almost completely back to normal now. No word on whether or not the planned PSN maintenance for today will go on as scheduled in the wake of these events, but it’s probably best to assume that it will.
Yes. My plane was diverted. Not going to discuss more than that. Justice will find these guys.
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) August 25, 2014
Pixel_nme
WHY I OUGHTA!!!
LegendishThingy
Why on earth do they do this? By no means is it an attack on Sony, it’s just an inconvenience for their customers.
If the PSN is down for a prolonged period then Sony might be in some trouble, particularly with Destiny releasing in a couple weeks time.
Lyts1985
You’d think if they were smart that’s exactly what they’d do… Instead they target them a day before PSN was due to go down for maintenance anyway.
jontheking
Lizard squad, yet another large pain in the arse, but they aren’t doing anyone any good. End the stupidity.
Pixel_nme
Didn’t they release a few singles in the early noughties? Oh hang on that was Blazin Squad :) bom bom bom meet you at the crossroads
Smallville2106
Fingers crossed it won’t be for long. Won’t be able to play Garden Warfare :(
Lyts1985
Looks like somebody didn’t give their child enough hugs or pocket money…
Fucking kids.
RedStarGlow
Not sure where the PSN datacenters are but there was a Earthquake in Northern California, USA this morning.
Yorozuya
Sad and pathetic, PSN wasnt the only gaming network to be hit. Hope they’re caught.
a inferior race
I wonder what their intention is?
DrDamn
DDoS is not what happened before. They were properly hacked before. I.e. someone got access. This is stopping anyone have access. You should wait for further confirmation before suggesting this is the same thing.
Dazbobaby
A DDoS is exactly what happened before, only during the attack either a rack of servers rebooted and access was made available, or the DDoS was a distraction while hackers gained full access.
DrDamn
The ‘only during’ part of your post is the point. It isn’t ‘exactly’ if you add ‘only during’ is it?
Dazbobaby
So you’re a pedant pulling my sentence apart because I disagree with you? I hope you can do better than that.
DrDamn
No my point is that the article implied this was the same as before. That hadn’t been confirmed and it is irresponsible to report it like that in my opinion. Just a DDOS is *not* what happened last time.
Midstar
No it wasn’t. In 2011, psn was taken down because user data was compromised. DDOS, in this case, simply floods the server with large amounts of traffic, preventing actual users from access. DDOS attacks are simple and shouldn’t take very long to fix the problem.
DrDamn
@Midstar
Exactly.
a inferior race
Quite often tye ddos is used in conjunction with something else.
DrDamn
That’s a reasonable point yes.