PSN Down With NW-31456-9 Error Code, Reportedly Attacked [UPDATE]

TSA Staff 114 Comments

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.


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.

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.

 

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114 Comments

  1. LOL at all of you guys.. All our detail are vulnerable. Watch the youtube vid, sony can’t stop people with jailbroken ps3’s logging into the servers, their security is a joke. I’m quite mad at sony right now tbh and I’ve stuck with them for years.

  2. Love Kaz Harai! Way to lead by example and not go batshit-fanboy crazy about this

    • Apparently it’s a parody account… Unfortunately!

  3. Damn you guys are slow.. Try an Update 3 and drop this link https://m.youtube.com/user/FamedGod and btw, we all care, all our details are vulnerable due to sony’s incompetence.

    • Please stop scaremongering and believing what some twat is posting on YouTube as gospel.

      • Wow. This is the real guy, 100% legit. I’m not sure if you noticed but you can’t get online right now and I’m telling you the reason, I’m a fan, I want to be online. All I’m doing is showing you guys whats happening faster than the writer of this article can keep up. I’ve watched these guys for a long time, moved in these circles. What I’m telling you will be news in an hour or so all over the place, you can thank me then that you heard it here first.

      • Agreed.

        There’s no suggestion anything has been compromised, from Sony or either of the self-claimed “hackers”.

        All they’ve done is made it difficult to connect to the service. “Don’t panic Mr Mainwaring!”

      • TSA is run by volunteers, unpaid. So if they aren’t posting 24hrs a day perhaps you can understand why.

        Also, as I posted, no one cares who is doing it, or why. I just needs to stop.

    • Also it’s half ten on Sunday. Not exactly many staff around, just me.

      • I’m in the irc right now. Believe what you want, I’m trying to tell you what’s really happening.

      • Lol @ your update TC :-D

      • Damn.. Good job, This site was 2nd on google when I searched for news. Look, I’m not looking to argue, I’m just trying to help people know what’s going on. And people care, if they didn’t, you wouldn’t have used the name lizard squad in the original news post.

      • I’m off to bed. Hopefully they will have all been arrested by the time I wake up. Gnite.

    • Our details are not vulnerable, it’s just a childish DDOS. There is no intrusion, only a hammering at the gates. Keep calm and carry on.

      • And you know this for fact?

      • Aww, I was looking forward to his silly little reply. I bet it involved how we should all bow down to our new interweb overlords and surrender our freedom. Probably ended with “Hail HYDRA” or some nonsense. ;-)

      • Do you have any proof of this please?
        The admin shouldn’t have banned that guy, he seemed like he knew what he was talking about.

      • How can you say that? Do you have proof?

      • It’s been confirmed by multiple sources, including Sony and the culprits.

        What they do is borrow multiple servers (in this case, supposedly from Amazon or something) and then they hammer the datacentres they want to attack with requests. Causing too much traffic, or a traffic-jam if you like. Basically creating the effect seen when a large game releases and the servers slow down, like what happened when the Destiny Beta went live. Because the traffic comes from multiple sources, it’s difficult to block.

      • Lol Kenny, me too. Was looking forward to pointing out how “FamedGod” has now admitted he wasn’t involved… Just to see what ‘Gar’ had to say. Sucks :-D

        Madbro, he really didn’t. Just what he was reading on Twitter and swallowing every word like it was gospel.

  4. In fairness, it just looks like a pissing contest if you’re following Twitter. The second guy, Fame, is claiming he’s responsible and that Lizard is taking credit where he shouldn’t. Lizard is ignoring it. None of it is verified. It’s Peters word against Paul’s.

    The way I see it, Lizard came out claiming responsibility for a DDoS attack before Fame made a single tweet. How can Lizard have known it was a DDoS attack and not some form of hack, intrusion, or genuine maintenance before anyone else had said anything publicly? Also, that list of IPs could be anyone’s or could be no-ones. There’s no way of telling. I can type up a list of IPs and tell you they all belong to heads of state but that doesn’t mean anything…

    In short (TL;DR) don’t believe everything you read on this. Yet. My money’s on Lizard but time will tell… I hope!

  5. Kaz Hirai’s tweet… :D

    They need to come down hard on these losers.

  6. U mad bro? Deleting comments? The level of censorship here is strong.

    • You called me incompetent, if you are going to fling insults please go to VG247 or somewhere else that tolerates that kind of thing.

      • Scroll up, I called sony incompetent.

  7. https://mobile.twitter.com/FamedGod/status/503656489224257537 Fame (the one that did it) is online on psn right now, on his own. Proof enough?

    • And?

      • And he is the only person able to log in.. Does this not prove responsibility for the hack? He’s on the admin servers. You could have been one of the first sources to post the real story. Shame you let your ego overtake sense.

      • OK so he’s responsible.. and?? We’re not here to publicise twats. We really don’t care who did it.

        Please got and hassle VG247 they haven’t updated their story for 11 hours.

        And anymore personal insults to the staff and you will be banned.

      • And you’re a censoring little faggot who can’t admit he’s wrong. Expect us.

      • Urgh. My guess is “madbro” is “welsh_gar” in another guise judging by the abuse

    • I fail to see how 1 muppet posting that he’s online on PSN is proof he did it when others are online right now…

  8. I want to thank you for not naming the muppet in question in the article. He’s clearly seeking attention, so he shouldn’t be given any credits.

  9. You named lizardsquad and posted a pic of his tweet, thus making your previous comment highly hypocritical. Don’t be mad because you were wrong.. Jeez. I was trying to help but fuck you, U MAD BRO. BAN ME.

  10. This highlights that I literally cannot play any game on my PS4 without the PSN…most games refuse to boot up!

    • TLoU and Pixel Junk work fine, been playing both

    • Trine 2 is fully operational as well, or at least the singleplayer is. Fez won’t start though.

      • If you’re struggling with single player again when the network isent working properly, untick connect to the internet in network settings. Might fix your issue.

      • Thanks stueeeee, hopefully I can remember that hot tip next time! :-)

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