Sony Corp said on Sunday its PlayStation Network was taken down by a denial of service-style attack and the FBI was investigating the diversion of a flight carrying a top Sony executive amid reports of a claim that explosives were on board.<\/p>\n
The company said in a posting on its PlayStation blog that no personal information of the network was accessed in the attack, which overwhelmed the system with heavy traffic.<\/p>\n
“We will continue to work towards fixing this issue and hope to have our services up and running as soon as possible,” it said.<\/p>\n
A plane carrying Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley was diverted on Sunday, Smedley said in a post on microblogging site Twitter.<\/p>\n
A group called Lizard Squad sent a message through its Twitter account to American Airlines saying Smedley’s flight had explosives on board, according to a report by USA Today. The group also used Twitter to claim credit for the network attack, the newspaper said.<\/p>\n
USA Today reported that the Dallas\/Fort Worth flight to San Diego was diverted and landed safely in Phoenix.<\/p>\n
A PlayStation spokeswoman in the United States said the diverted flight was being handled by the FBI and had no comment. An FBI spokesman had no immediate comment.<\/p>\n
Sony is hoping its PlayStation network, with 52 million active users, can serve as a centerpiece of its plans to rebuild its business after years of losses in its flagship electronics operations.<\/p>\n
The network business has been hit by attacks before, with a security breach in 2011 dealing a major blow to plans at the time for a looser network designed to allow for the connection of a range of Sony devices.<\/p>\n
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