Sony’s PlayStation Network has now been down for nearly 20 hours, which is one of the longest such periods of downtime that the internet service has ever seen. Naturally, as PS5 and PS4 users continue to remain locked out of the PlayStation Store, PlayStation Plus, multiplayer games, and other account features tied to PSN, questions have started to circle about what might be the cause of this crash in the first place. For now, we don’t have any firm answers, but history would point to a hack of PlayStation being a possible cause.
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At the time of this writing, Sony hasn’t said anything publicly about what has gone wrong with PSN. Instead, the gaming corporation has only issued a single statement saying that it knows “some users might be currently experiencing issues with PSN.” Other than this, further details on what is holding up PSN from returning to its normal capacity haven’t emerged from Sony.
Based on previous instances of PSN going down, though, a number of users believe that a cyberattack levied at PlayStation is a probable reason for why the network is unusable. In the past, whenever PSN has gone down for a lengthy amount of time, it has more often than not been as a result of an outside entity hacking Sony. This was most prominently seen in 2011 when a hack left Sony taking down PSN for a period of roughly three weeks. Following this instance, another hack of PSN on Christmas Day in 2014 say the service crash for a majority of the holiday. Since then, PSN has been relatively secure, which has resulted in this ongoing downtime being the longest one that has been seen in the past decade.
Related: PSN Outage Is Even Worse for Certain PS5 Users
What’s concerning about this potential of a hack aimed at PSN is that it could result in the private information of PS5 and PS4 users falling into the hands of an outside entity. With many PlayStation users storing data like their personal name, address, and baking info on PSN for transactions on the PS Store, there is a chance that these details could be lifted by the hacker or hacking group in question. As such, this is why millions of PlayStation members are demanding more answers from Sony about what exactly is going on.
Again, it’s worth stressing that a hack of PSN has not been confirmed just yet, so there’s no reason to worry about this being the case for now. There’s always the chance that some other technical hiccup could have occurred with the PSN servers which has led to everything being down. If PlayStation has indeed been hacked, though, it’s something that Sony will likely share in the near future as a way of protecting its users.
If and when more information emerges on this front, we’ll be sure to let you know here on ComicBook.
