Just moments ago, PlayStation Network went down, throwing thousands of gamers offline and rendering many services unusable. Lizard Squad has, as usual, taken credit for the outage.
Lizard Squad stated in its latest tweet:
PSN Login #offline #LizardSquad
The attack is very real, too. You can see a visual representation of the DDOS attack live on websites such as Digital Attack Map. Traffic appears to originate from proxies in China which are slamming the North American PSN servers. There also appears to be an attack hitting Peru. It is presently unclear what this is affecting.
Over 1,400 Twitter users have already retweeted the post offering just a glimpse at how profound of an impact it has had. Not only are PS4 users affected, but so are those on PS3 and PS Vita. This attack arrives right at the tail end of PlayStation Experience, a PlayStation focused event held by Sony in Las Vegas. PlayStation gamers are about just as excited as ever to play Sony’s games, but are being prevented from doing so in many cases thanks to a holiday Grinch.
Last weekend Lizard Squad took down not only Xbox Live, but impacted the arrival of World of Warcraft; Warlords of Draenor‘s first PvP season and raid dungeon. It accomplishes this through DDoS attacks, which essentially bombard servers that host online services with traffic to a point where they are incapable of handling connections from real users.
Related: Xbox Live is Struggling Due to a Lizard Squad DDoS Attack
If you’re a PlayStation user and are wondering how this affects you, let’s put it this way. Netflix is currently unusable, as are any of the network features such as live streaming or Facebook sharing. You also can’t play online multiplayer, or purchase games from the PlayStation Store. In other words, you’re stuck playing alone or in local multiplayer for the time being.
One element of this that may be a source for major frustration is EA’s celebration of PlayStation’s 20th Anniverary, which is offering three games (including Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare) for free. The deal expires tonight, so anyone who wasn’t able to get in on the deal earlier today or yesterday may be out of luck.
Truth is, given the timing of the attack (Sunday evening) it’s unlikely that things will get better any time soon. Your guess is as good as mine in terms of how quickly Sony can thwart the attack, but if I had to guess I’d say we might be waiting until morning or afternoon tomorrow before PSN is accessible again. For the time being, throw your favorite single-player game in your PS4—might I recommend Grand Theft Auto V or The Last of Us: Remastered?—and try not to let Lizard Squad’s cruelness get to you too much.
