The+April+2011+PSN+Crash+(Leric)

For a little context to this post, read up on Sony's legal actions against hackers.
On April 20th, 2011, the Playstation Network experienced the most severe crash in five year long history. Initially, Sony told users that the temporary shutdown is due to network maintenance. The company claimed that PSN services would be restored in approximately two days. Only a few days later, Sony disclosed that the PSN had been intruded by hackers. This time, Sony made no concrete mention of a date for the service to return. In order to assure the players, Sony came out with statements claiming that they are rebuilding their network infrastructure to be even better than prior to the crash.

A week into the crash, the situation worsened when Sony disclosed that Playstation Network Users' information is possibly at risk. Most importantly, sensitive information like Name, Address, Birth Date, and even Credit Card information could be compromised.

On April 26th, Patrick Seybold, Sr. Director of Corporate Communications & Social Media, released an extensive post on the Playstation Blog updating the community on the situation. According to the post, during a two day span of April 17th-April 19th, intruders were able to access PSN users' data. Sony's official statement did not clarify exactly, but only suspected, what information were compromised.

On April 27th, Mr. Seybold once again updated the community, this time with a little good news. In the post, he offered an estimated time for the service's return on May 3rd. If the PSN does indeed return on such date, the PSN would've been down for two weeks.

Anonymous' involvement in the Playstation Network crashed is currently heavily debated. The hacktivist group is clearly an enemy of Sony. Whether the group is the scapegoat or the perpetrator for the crash, is up to an individual's virtual partisanship. Anonymous itself released an official statement (video) that denied any responsibility for the crash. However, skeptics have been pointing out the unorganized nature of Anonymous. Since the group is has supporters around the globe, it often lacks a cohesive goal and leadership. Therefore, even though Anonymous as a collective group is not responsible for the crash, certain members of the group could still be involved for the attack. Sauce

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