Both Playstation and Xbox online services crashed on Christmas day, citing technical issues. Apparrently, hackers – namely the “Lizard Squad” – deliberately disrupted their systems. A DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) Attack, which floods the servers with traffic overload, is believed to have been the method they used.
Microsoft Corporation (Xbox makers) and Sony Corporation (Playstation makers) have informed their customers about the online services problems, explaining that they are working to resolve them.
The outages on both networks, which have left tens of millions of users unable to play their games or access entertainment channels, are continuing into Boxing Day.
Neither Sony nor Microsoft have commented on the claims made by Lizard Squard.
Playstation wrote on Twitter on Christmas day:
“We are still looking into the PSN issues reported earlier. Thanks again for your continued patience today.”
Millions of users were unable to hook up their newly-acquired Christmas gifts.
Xbox wrote on its Live Service Alert web page:
“Xbox members, are you experiencing issues when attempting to sign in? We’re aware of this issue, and we’re working to find a fix ASAP! We appreciate your patience in the meantime, and we encourage you to retry signing in when you get a chance. We’ll update you as soon as we know more.”
Microsoft and Sony had expected a surge in usage over Christmas as people started using their gifts and tried to hook up. Experts wonder whether the problems might have been exacerbated by Sony’s decision to make its controversial movie The Interview available online through Xbox Video as well as other online sources.
Earlier this month, Lizard Squad, which described itself as the “next generation Grinch”, had threatened it was planning to take down both PlayStation Network and Xbox Live on Christmas Day. The Finest Squad, another group of hackers, responded by saying that it would stop Lizard Squad and bring its members to justice.
At 5pm ET on Christmas Day the Finest Squad tweeted that it had “pretty much restored” the Xbox service.
