SHAFAQNA – The online networks for Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox video game consoles are showing signs of recovery following a Christmas Day attack that took both services offline.
In a tweet sent early Saturday morning, PlayStation confirmed all their network services were “gradually coming back online.” Meanwhile, an Xbox Live service status page shows most services are up and running, except for limited access to apps including IGN, Maxim and MLG.TV.
However, Xbox’s support team does acknowledge that some users continue to have trouble, based on a tweet posted late Friday night.
Both services were hit by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which clogs a network or service making it unavailable to users. The group Lizard Squad claimed credit for the attacks.
This is not the first time Lizard Squad has targeted PlayStation Network and other video game services. In late August, the group performed a similar attack against PSN and other developers including Blizzard (World of Warcraft) and Riot Games (League of Legends).
The group also sent a tweet to American Airlines at the time of the August hack claiming a plane carrying Sony Online Entertainment chief John Smedley had explosives on board. Smedley later confirmed his flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to San Diego had been diverted.
In an interview with WinBeta.org, the group says the Christmas Day attacks started as something “simply for laughs,” but turned into an effort to push Microsoft and Sony to upgrade their security.
Source : http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2014/12/27/psn-xbox-live-outages/20937021/