Jun 25, 2011
On the night of April 20th, 2011, PlayStation Network and Qriocity users around the world noticed something strange about their system. There seemed to be uncalled for matienence occurring, and many assumed to think nothing of it. The next morning, when users awoke and noticed that the network was still undergoing “matinence”, some began to get worried. Here’s a timeline of the events for the situation. Sony released a statement that day, stating that the network would be up and running again within “a full day or two” while the cause of the outage was investigated. Sony learned on Friday, April 22nd, 2011, that the outages were caused by an “external intrusion”, stated that more time was needed to resolve the problem, and had completely shut down PlayStation Network and Qriocity servers to ensure a “smooth and secure” operation.
The only news that was received over the weekend was on Saturday, April 23rd, 2011, where Sony stated that it was undergoing a “time consuming” task of rebuilding the network’s infrastructure. The weekend passed with no further news. On Monday, April 25, 2011, the only news that was received was that Sony was attempting to resolve the conflict “quickly” but had no new information on when services would be up and running again. Many began to wonder when, or if the network serviced would ever resume. On Tuesday, April 26, Sony releases the news to the public that the network has been hacked, and calls upon the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for assistance regarding the investigation on the identity of the hacker or hackers. On Wednesday, April 27th, 2011, Sony posts a Q&A session, telling the users that their credit card information was encrypted and secured, and planned on having the network back and available by Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011. Days pass, and no promising, or even useful information is learned, Until May 2nd, 2011, when Sony announces that 24.6 million SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) accounts were potentially compromised.
The previously stated deadline of Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 passes, with the network still down, with no return in sight. Sony sets a new dead line of the end of that week, May 7th, 2011. On May 6th, 2011, Sony announces, once again, that the deadline will be missed, while they are on the final testing stages of the new system. On May 10th, 2011, Sony releases it’s final statement, saying that it will take “a few more days” to get the network back and running. Finally, on Saturday, May 14, 2011, PlayStation Network is useable again. A change that all users will notice upon logging in for the first time, is that due to security reasons, every account password must be changed. Most services have been returned to their original state, except that the PlayStation store will continue to be unavailable for a longer period of time. Having been through this large ordeal, I now hope PlayStation has the proper security to avoid a conflict of this nature to never occur again.
