LulzSec Disbanded

LulzSec's logo

Hackers group LulzSec has announced via a press release that they’re disbanding. The news comes after LulzSec’s pre planned 50 day attack on various companies including, Sony, Nintendo, Fox and PBS. The group said “Our planned 50 day cruise has expired” 

They also went on to say “For the past 50 days we've been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could." LulzSec made the headlines with its attacks, the attacks highlighted holes in the security of companies.     

By Robert Leat
Site Founder and Editor 

Sony Begin Restoration of PlayStation services

Sony has begun restoring the Playstation network. The restoration will begin in the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East. This comes after a down time of 3 weeks due to a security breach.  Users will be required to change their password upon signing in.  

According to a press release services expected to return are:

• sign-in for PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, including the resetting of passwords

• Restoration of online game-play across PS3 and PSP

• Playback rental video content, if within rental period, of PlayStation Network Video Delivery Service on PS3, PSP and MediaGo

• Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity, for current subscribers, on PS3 and PC

• Access to 3rd party services such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and MLB.tv

• 'Friends' category on PS3, including Friends List, Chat Functionality, Trophy Comparison, etc
  PlayStation Home

 See the press release here.

By Robert Leat

(C) Robert Leat 2011

Site founder and Editor and chief

PlayStation Network and Quirocity services will resume this week

Sony revealed on their blog that they would be rolling out PlayStation network and Quirocity services in the upcoming week. A press conference took place in Tokyo   this morning and a press release is being distributed worldwide. They went on to thank everyone for their patience; the roll out of services will begin regionally. Users will be greeted with a mandatory update which will require users to change their password. At the press conference Kaz Hirai offered his apologies for the outage and also said that the PlayStation store would not be up and instead would be back up within a month. Approximately 10 million credit card numbers may have fallen into the hands of the hackers, 1/10 of the people that use the PlayStation network.  The motive behind the attack is still unclear. 

Playstation Network update

Sony has provided yet another update about the PlayStation network. They posted a long Q and A; they insisted that they are still not sure that any credit card details have been taken. The service has now been down for a week and it is likely to be down for another week.  Sony has said “Our employees have been working day and night to restore operations as quickly as possible, and we expect to have some services up and running within a week from yesterday. However, we want to be very clear that we will only restore operations when we are confident that the network is secure.” can we still trust Sony?

PSN still down after 6 days

The PSN  is still down after 6 days. The latest update from Sony suggest that some personal data  may have been compromised “ We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network.” They also went on to provide a list of things they were doing to combat the problem, the main being that they temporarily turned off the PSN and Quirocity services. Sony have hired an outside security firm to investigate what actually happened to disrupt the service. Sony will be emailing every PSN user with a letter which can be seen here.  From what i have heard it is likely to be back online next Wednesday at the earliest. Follow @leatstechcorner on twitter to be kept up to date. Also search leats tech corner on facebook.  

Playstation Network Still Down

(C) Robert Leat 2011

The play station network is still down.  Users receive the message “playstation network is undergoing maintenance”   In a recent blog update Sony said “.An External intrusion on our system has affected our Playstation Network and Qrirocity services”.  They also said “ we are doing all we can to resolve this issue quickly” 

In the last couple of weeks the PSN has been targeted by a group of hackers called “Anonymous” but the group has denied all responsibility for the attack, in a statement they said “For once we didn’t do it”.  The PSN is used by 70 million people worldwide however it is unclear how many people have been affected by this issue.