Sony has begun to resurrect the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, which were taken down after the entertainment company suffered a major cyberattack.
Sony announced that the services were being restored on a country-by-country basis on Sunday, with restoration beginning in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East and the Americas.
"Working closely with several respected outside security firms, [Sony] has implemented new and additional security measures that strengthen safeguards against unauthorised activity, and provide consumers with greater protection of their personal information," Sony said in a statement on Sunday.
Initially, North America and Europe will gain access to sign-in for the PlayStation Network (PSN) and Qriocity services; online gameplay across the PlayStation 3 and PSP consoles; the playback of rented content from PlayStation Store Video Store on PS3, PSP and Media Go; Q Music Unlimited for subscribers on PS3 and PC; the VidZone and MUBI services and the 'Friends' category on PS3 and PlayStation Home.
The company hopes to complete the restoration of services by 31 May, Sony said.
The PSN network was taken down on 20 April in response to a hack that compromised the personal data of over 70 million users of the service.
The hack, which occurred between 17 and 19 April, gave hackers access to names, usernames, addresses, email addresses, birthdays and PSN and Qriocity passwords of consumers of the services, Sony disclosed in late April.
Little is known about the technical specifics of the hack, though a recent unnamed source, quoted by Bloomberg, indicated that rented hardware from Amazon Web Services may have been used as a staging point for the hack.
Additional PSN safety measure
Before being able to access PSN consumers will need to update their PSN account passwords, Sony said. PS3 owners will be able to do this by updating the console to version 3.61 of its software — which was issued on 14 May — and then signing in to PSN from the XMB (XrossMediaBar) menu. Otherwise, passwords can be changed by visiting a Sony link from PCs.
Any queries from UK consumers should be directed to Sony via the contact details on its UK PSN-outage page, the company said.
As a consequence of the hack Sony has made "considerable enhancements" to the security of its services by adding additional software monitoring, increasing levels of encryption and rolling-out additional firewalls. The company has also added various security services to its network infrastructure, including an early warning system for identifying symptoms of services being probed by prospective hackers.
Update:2:44pm
While various US-based users of social network Twitter have confirmed to ZDNet UK that their PSN services came back online in the USA late last night, multiple UK consumers report that they are still unable to access the service.
Update:5:47pm
The official Sony Twitter account for the European region has said it will tweet on a region-by-region basis as PSN services resume.
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Talkback
im from leeds UK and i did the update this morning, once it had finished i tried to sign in but still said the error message playstation network is still undergoing maintenance :( should this have happened or will it work later on in the day ??
I've been speaking to a few of my friends on Twitter/Facebook. Anecdotal reports say US PSN is working and UK is not back up yet. Sony said it should happen at some point today. One friend theorised PSN could be having trouble now because everyone is trying to log-on at once.
Yeah, I got the same thing. I'm down in Southend and, last I checked, it's still down. I should think it will come back up by the end of the day...hopefully :S
Yer im from newcastle and i installed software last night at 3 in mornin when i got in from town but it didn let me sign in, av heard from other forums that it will be bk im checkin it hourly. Also love leeds great piss up lol
absolute load of crap....more like every single on line play station user.....i think Sony play station are extremely lucky they haven't been shut down permanently by the authorities and all they are going to do for people is let us watch a couple free films and listen to some music woo hoo thats worth it hay.....well im not gonna sell my play station 3 slim line 250 gb that i spent 300 quid on just yet with the money i wasted on the crappy games that were hacked just as much as the crappy network....but guess what Sony and play station you have completely taken yourself out of the competition against xbox.....your now shit station or hack station what ever you prefer........mugs !!!!!!!!
I have been informed by a valuable source, that the UK restoration of PSN will begin around 5pm today!
Be patient once it happens as there is around 7 million people that are going to try log on all at once!!
What to do til 5 hmmmmm
your network should be on either today or tomorrow, they are at this moment finishing off america, then UK etc.
psn back on in canada just did the update 5 mins ago had to change password works fine:D
is it true that you have to login from your ps3 you made your account on? :( because mine had the yellow light of death so i sold it for around £60, and bought a slim, would i still be able to change my password and then go on my account??
im from northern ireland and mine has problems, i installed the system update but it still says psn is undergoing maintenance, whats wrong
You're lucky, still waiting
i hear info that the ps network will be restored by 5pm this sunday evening... may 15th? im from huddersfield and im not getting services so hurry it up sony 5pm better come quick
@ jjaacc1006
I'm not sure. I'd suggest contacting Sony via the @PlayStationEU twitter account as it seems to be staffed today and hopefully they can point you in the right direction.
@ Calvin Kelly
Seems that while N America is back UK should come back today. A commenter in this thread says they have a 'valuable source' who says 5pm.
What about Ireland does that go back same time as the UK ???????
No sony just left europe last so we have to w8 until the system restore
i also done the update last night at 2am and still could not sign in, it will go live soon i'm sure but while i wait for psn to go LIVE im playing black ops, go to multi player-local-split screen-edit game options to enemies 9- change game mode to team death- create class and killsteaks and start match. should help you black ops fans pass the time HAVE FUN TILL PSN GOES LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
why are people complaining so much year its a pain in the ass that it was down but at least u dont have to pay nothing for it like x box
oh great i go to work AT 5 GRRRRRRRR
@Kevin Kinsey... truth! :P
@danny9519 Same dude, im from Manchester , and I updated it at about 12 ish, tried it right after and nothing, been trying it like every half hour since and still . . . . . nothing. It wouldnt surprise me if it came on much later, but it wouldnt surprise me if it didnt either, purely due to all the times Sony has said 'Back on the end of the week' and it hasnt.
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hey i live in ireland and i was wondering when is it gonna be coming back on ?
I guess im sorta lucky as i have both consoles, been playing xbox for 3 weeks. Make PSN work in the U.K!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah you can - same thing happened to my old ps3.
When you get on psn you'll have to reset your password via the email address the account is on. (:
@DizzeeBludd hahaha nice
Well when this finally comes online in the UK add me :) 'Dizzeebludd'
lol
ye you can do that or pretty sure you can log on to the website and change it there?
i think it won't go live till late tonight might even be 1am or 2am cause there is loads of us waiting to go online and if they flicked the switch now just think what that would do so many of us trying to log in at the same time, may-be thats why USA was turned on 1st cause most of the yanks where sleeping
@DizzeeBludd Sorry mate, was that directed towards me ?
I'm in Reading, south east england, and just checked at 3:10pm here and the update is indeed downloading itself. If up north doesn't have it then yet it makes sense that Sony might be rolling it out slowly over the UK, probably started in London.
@cjcal17 Man it was to anyone that play's Black Ops Lol
is 5 0clock for canada to lol im going crazy lmao
come on black opps lol
After numerous reports and numerous speculation about who and when the hack occurred and whether my VALUABLE account and online credit details were taken is yet to be acknowledged or reported by 77million playstation users throughout the globe.
As a professional and a businessman I am appalled at how Sony executives kept millions of us in the dark for around 3 frustrating weeks giving us continous and useless updates when clearly most of us needed to hear something concrete and something of validity.
I know the complexity of a platform being hacked or breached is nothing to be taken lightly but I blame SONY for being totally care free about our private and personal details.
They should be held accountable for this prolonged and outrageous outage.
Measures of VERACODE SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN PLACE FROM DAY ONE..SIMPLE!
@DizzeeBludd haha oh. . . . embarrassing
Progress at last yaas soon be back to kickin azz on blackops ....... GLASGOW RANGERS CHAMPIONS 2011
Hahahahahahaha LOL
Leading to the upcoming ?...do we have full confidence in psn and has their reputation been smeared as a result i ask?
maybee m8 maybee
if you guys want to add me when the psn comes back online, my gamertag is jjaacc1006 :D
I heard getting the up date lets you change your password but mine didn't give me the option to. psn hasn't worked yet and I am from the southern UK, and we were meant to be the second country to get back online.
whats your psn names? a pro black ops player haha lol :)
i from manchester uk and after doind the update i still cant login
this is helish done the update at 15.15 today ctill cant login
here's hoping it's ok for tomorrow
Im still waiting.................. ;(
DizzeeBludd
well I myself have been checking my amex account regularly for any kind of breach...but safe soo far....but if i have any of my thousands missing from my account I'LL be knocking on SONY'S DOOR FOR SURE