Attackers knock Sony PlayStation Network offline

Sony found itself on the receiving end of a crippling distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on Sunday. The hacking collective known as Anonymous has taken credit, claiming the attack was intended to demonstrate continued weaknesses in Sony’s network security.

The reality is that a well-orchestrated DDoS attack is challenging to defend against. The whole point of having a website is for computers to connect to that website. A DDoS attack simply floods the network and servers with more traffic than it can handle, but discriminating the legitimate traffic from the DDoS traffic is difficult.

I wrote about the PSN DDoS attack:

As users settled in to a comfy couch or bean bag chair Sunday morning for an exciting morning of PlayStation gaming—a bag of Doritos and a can of Red Bull sitting within arm’s reach—attackers essentially shut down the PlayStation Network and disrupted those plans. No Watch Dogs, or Diablo III: Reaper of Souls for you.

The hacktivist collective known as Anonymous has taken credit for the attack—claiming it was initiated to demonstrate weaknesses in Sony’s network. Sony did appear to be the primary target, or at least suffer the greatest impact, but there were also simultaneous attacks against the Microsoft Xbox Live network, and Blizzard’s Battle.net network.

Sony wasn’t “hacked” in this case. It was just a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. Basically, the attackers just flooded the PSN network and servers with more traffic, and more requests than they could handle—rendering them effectively useless.

Click here to read the full article on CSOOnline: PlayStation Network crippled by DDoS attack.