It is really so sad that Gamers
around the world were left disappointed on Christmas Day after hacking
group Lizard Squad carried through with its threat to bring down both
Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live service.
Notorious
hacking group Lizard Squad, who had previously brought down both
networks earlier this month, once again claimed responsibility for the
sustained distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
Microsoft
and Sony both used Twitter to acknowledge the issues and to assure
users that they were doing everything they could to restore their
services.
The hack
left gamers unable to play online and also impacted online components of
hugely popular games such as Call of Duty, Madden, FIFA and The Sims 4.
Occasional
downtime is par for the course for both services, but Christmas Day is a
particularly bad time to be hacked, just as hundreds of thousands of
PlayStation 4s and Xbox Ones were being unwrapped and set up for the
first time.
Lizard
Squad had first announced earlier this month plans to take down the
PlayStation Network and Xbox Live on Christmas Day. It described itself
as the 'next generation Grinch.
Another
hacker group, The Finest Squad, then emerged, saying that it would stop
the group and bring its members to justice. The Finest Squad tweeted at
about 5pm ET that they had Xbox 'pretty much restored.'
The
problems may have been exacerbated by Sony's decision to let consumers
download the controversial movie The Interview through Xbox Video as
well as other online sources.
'Are
you having a rough time signing in to Xbox Live?,' a service alert on
the Microsoft product's website asked. 'We're working to get this
figured out right away. We appreciate your patience.
Two hours
after the message was posted at 4:33 p.m. ET, the Xbox Live site said
technicians were still 'hard at work trying to reach a solution.'
As of 6.45pm ET, PlayStation Network was still offline, according to the device's status page.
'We
are aware that some users are experiencing difficulty logging into the
PSN,' it said. 'We will update this article with any changes that occur
in regards to this issue. Thank you for your patience.'
Three
Xbox platforms were affected by the service problem: Xbox One, Xbox 360
and Xbox on other devices, Microsoft's status website said.
