What, another story about Sony? Yes, but this time it's good news: after a month of downtime, the company is bringing some PlayStation Network services back in some parts of Asia. While there's still no word on when US services are returning, some progress is still better than no word at all.
PlayStation Network users have been having a hard time lately, with successive hacks, followed by a long downtime which continues to this day. At least they will now be able to tell whether the service is down or not thanks to a simple iPhone App.
Sony's recent data breach could cost the company as much as $24.5 billion according to a new infographic put together by PromotionalCodes. The whole palaver began way back on April 19th when Sony discovered that a few PlayStation Network servers had rebooted themselves for no apparent reason. After some research and, we assume much panic, Sony took the unpleasant decision to pull its entire multiplayer network and online store off the internet the next day. The plan was to bring everything back online once the issue was resolved. That took much, much longer than any of us expected.
The last few months have been quite a PR disaster for Sony: last month, the system got hacked for the first time, and information leaked, including emails, passwords and even credit card numbers. Then, after a period of downtime, the system gets hacked again, multiple times, and just after it was just starting to be phased back in, behold: an unresolved exploit has been publicized.
In news that can't be easy for Japanese PSN fans to read, Sony is being prevented from turning it's PlayStation Network back on by the country's own government.
Sony's servers may have been taken down using Amazon's servers according to Bloomberg. Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg claims Amazon's 'Amazon Web Services' servers may have been used to attack Sony's online presence.
Good news for Sony today, with reports that their PlayStation Network is back online, but you have to be a developer to use it. The news cones from gaming and games industry forum NEOGAF, where forum-goer Kagari reporting that he's been told by a few developers that PSN is back online.
Sony Denies Its PlayStation Network Servers Ran Outdated Software, Plans To Offer Bounty For Hackers
With Sony's PlayStation Network still down following a string of hacking attacks by a still unknown group, the accusations and questions have been flying in all directions. Who exactly at behind the attack, why did they do it, and perhaps more importantly, how did they manage it?
Charts handed out by Sony at one of its press conferences to explain the PSN state of play show how the company thinks its gaming network was hacked into, as well as giving a list showing the number of users from each region who's data may have been compromised.
Oh to be a fly on the wall at Sony HQ these days. After previously saying they hoped to bring their PlayStation Network back online this weekend, Sony has had to postpone the much-awaited return of the service due to a third wave of attacks aimed at the Japanese giant.
