Bomb Threats Targeting Sony President Smedley Shut Down PSN Sunday

The Sony PlayStation Network shut down on Sunday due to a bomb threat against Sony Online Entertainment President, John Smedley.

@LizardSquad, the group originally claiming credit for DDOS attacks against several gaming related services this weekend, seems to be targeting Sony specifically. It tweeted a bomb threat to American Airlines, grounding a plane on which Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley was due to travel.

Yes. My plane was diverted. Not going to discuss more than that. Justice will find these guys.

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) August 24, 2014

“The FBI is currently handling the situation at this time. We have no further comment,” Sony told GameInformer.

In addition, Shacknews is reporting that Battle.net, League of Legends and Grinding Gears’ Path of Exile have also been attacked. Hearthstone, however, appears to be fully playable right now.

PSN is back online, and here is an update by the PlayStation Blog:

The PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network are back online and people can now enjoy the services on their PlayStation devices. The networks were taken offline due to a distributed denial of service attack. We have seen no evidence of any intrusion to the network and no evidence of any unauthorized access to users’ personal information.

In light of today’s issue, the networks will not undergo the regularly scheduled maintenance, which was planned for Monday, August 25. We will provide an update shortly for when the maintenance will be rescheduled.

What are your thoughts?

Related: Best PS4 Games at Gamescom 2014

Source: PlayStation Blog

Galit Gordon

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I'm a published author and proud US Army veteran who happens to be a gamer, so I decided to combine the two and love every minute of it! Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments and I'll be sure to get back to you.