All PlayStation Network Services To Be Back Online This Week, Sony Promises

More than a month since Sony announced that attackers had infiltrated its PlayStation Network servers and compromised personal information belonging to over 100 million users, some PlayStation Network services remain offline, even though Sony started restoring access to its gaming system more than two weeks ago.

Sony now hopes to finally put the ordeal behind it and give its users access to all of the features they've been doing without.

The company promised in a blog post that all PlayStation Network services, including the PlayStation Store, Qriocity's Music Unlimited, and in-game purchases, would be "fully" restored "by the end of the week." Unless all of the services are restored by the end of the day Tuesday, Sony may miss its own deadline: the AP wrote that the company had previously promised to "fully restore its PlayStation Network" by the end of the month of May.

Per Sony's post, users in the Americas and Europe will see all PlayStation Network services restored before the end of this week, as will users in Asia, though not those in Japan, Hong Kong, or South Korea.

"The company implemented considerable security enhancements to the network infrastructure, as well as conducted testing of the payment process and commerce functions," Sony wrote in its post.

It remains to be see whether the new defenses will be enough to keep out cyber attackers, who have successfully hacked Sony sites on numerous occasions over the past several weeks. Information belonging to some 2,000 users was compromised in a hack that targeted the Sony Ericsson Canada website. The Sony BMG Greece music website also suffered a cyber attack.

Comments

[jaredbrain]

02:01 PM on 06/01/2011

S of this morning they playstation network is still down. Sony has failed to retore services in may

[macewan]

06:31 AM on 06/01/2011

Guess Sony will handle next Hotz situation with kid gloves.

[firelord5000]

10:05 PM on 05/31/2011

About time, I can't wait for my free InFamous and Little Big Planet fun time!

[duckzilla]

08:05 PM on 05/31/2011

they said last tuesday...i made the mistake of believing them

the said the end of may...i made the mistake of believing them

and i'm supposed to believe them now

[frank day]

05:25 PM on 05/31/2011

Haven't heard that promise before.

[J0E1]

03:50 PM on 05/31/2011

Netflix over wifi isn't working all that well, need my hardwired ps3 netflix back. It's getting really old...

[Checkpoint Charlie]

03:49 PM on 05/31/2011

Sony can bite me I'm buying an Xbox 360, PS3 is locking up these days anyhow.

[butkusrules]

03:24 PM on 05/31/2011

Maybe they shouldn't use their lawyers to attack kids who take apart their own Play stations and post what they did online. Sony getting what it deserves.

[Doc Wattson]

03:30 PM on 05/31/2011

Those kids who took apart this won PS and posted what they did online where teaching people how to get pirated software to work on the PS. Those kids are getting what they deserve.

[butkusrules]

03:53 PM on 05/31/2011

If Sony wants to lock down their system, so be it. But the onus is 100% on Sony to make a system that is pirate/hacker proof . The kid bought his own play station and is entitled to do with it whatever he wants. Taping shut the mouths of teenagers with lawsuits is about as Un-American as it gets and stifles innovation. Sony wont win this battle. Its a safe bet that this has cost them 1000x more then the release of any hack.

[imonlyhereforthelaughs]

03:12 PM on 05/31/2011

I'm not sure how to understand the sheer minimal numbers of accounts that were compromised.

It's either a tribute to Sony's ability to identify an issue and shut it down before more damage could be done...or it is a testament to how few people actually use PS3.

Since I don't own a game console, I have no vested interest in slamming or supporting them, so flaming about console wars will only get you a shrug and a pass.

[Leftmin]

05:15 PM on 05/31/2011

I think it may have been more about forcing them to pull down everything to do security checks. A month of lost revenue is not small.

[Roburt]

02:41 PM on 05/31/2011

I think Michael Pachter really puts it into perspective when he said that in response to faults in its product, Sony admits to faults and immediately fixes these faults; whereas, Microsoft still has not admit to the Red Ring of Death and there still is no fix for this fault. Not to mention the RROD is directly Microsoft's fault, whereas Sony was attacked by a third party. I think there's a difference though, that Sony's attack risked privacy breach and credit card fraud; whereas Microsoft's failure only bricked consoles.

[Jaskoen]

02:50 PM on 05/31/2011

Please. Console wars are so 2006.

[thx1139]

03:42 PM on 05/31/2011

What MS admitted to the fault and gave everyone a 3 year warranty on RRoD until the new redesigned 360s came out last year,

[Jack Daniels Esq]

01:44 PM on 05/31/2011

Sony has lost the plot ever since it root-kitted itself

[apathyman]

01:02 PM on 05/31/2011

Sony has been a bit of a disappointment to me. After all this time i still can't long in to change my password. On the other hand i've gotten a lot more free time on my hands these days.

[lartomar2002]

12:53 PM on 05/31/2011

Would it not have been cheaper to let the hacker have their HomeBrews?

[Roburt]

02:44 PM on 05/31/2011

Probably not. Sony would have to fix their securities anyways, so the marginal cost is very minimal (unless they lose the lawsuits of course). Piracy pretty much killed the PC market, until Steam came along.

[jack mcdowell]

05:49 PM on 05/31/2011

Piracy killed the PC market until Steam came along? That is a non sequitur. I think you mean, high game prices killed the PC market, until Steam realized that the equilibrium point adjusted, and Steam is an example of how profits can be made under this new equilibrium.