PlayStation Network Outage Update......

This is the most recent update from the official PlayStation site:

"The latest information on the PlayStation Network service outage.

Thank you for your patience while we work to resolve the current outage of PlayStation Network & Qriocity services. The following email has been sent to all PSN registrants; please read the help and support FAQ for more information.

Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer:

We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:

1)     Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;

2)     Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and

3)     Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by re-building our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.

We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable.

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state/province, zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity passwords and login and handle/PSN online ID.  It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained.  If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence that credit card data was taken at this time, we cannot rule out the possibility.  If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, to be on the safe side we are advising that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may also have been obtained.

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security, tax identification or similar number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking.  When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password.  Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them, as well. 

To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant to review your account statements and to monitor your credit or similar types of reports. 

We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of this incident, and we regret any inconvenience.  Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority.  

Please contact us at uk.playstation.com/psnoutage should you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,
 

    Sony Network Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment Teams"

Any future updates will be posted on this blog, as they are shown on the official PlayStation site.

We have no affiliation with Sony, PlayStation or any other related parties, but value the rights to information regarding ours and other console users gaming preferences. These recent posts are only here to provide up to date information on the current network problems PS3 users have been experiencing.

Here at The Pro Evo Masters League we just want to start playing online again and hope the issues that have affected many gamers such as ourselves can be rectified, without any ill effect on our personal data or gaming experience.

Thank you for your time.

Bob

PSN NETWORK DOWN.......

The last few days have been a bit dull for my online gaming. I had been hoping to make up some ground on my progress with MASTER LEAGUE ONLINE, but being a PS3 user has left me in a bit of a pickle!

At first, I believed that I had been having problems with my wireless router, or my general Internet connection. When I turned on my PS3 and logged in with my user account, I was receiving an error message which notified me I was unable to connect to the PlayStation Network and was logged out. I did the usual procedure when web connections seem unable to connect and turned each gadget off, all the way to my modem. I then turned each one on, starting with the modem, but left at least 30 seconds between each.

Did this sort the problem? Nope!

The process got repeated a few times, but yet I was still getting the same message! Gutting! So what was I to do next?

I decided to check my PC connection to the web. This turned out to be fine, so I knew there was no problem with either the modem, or the router. Still wanting an answer, I then turned to the net itself and searched for the latest feeds related to the PSN. 

Low and behold, I had found the answer. Apparently the network had been hacked! The official PlayStation site had released a comment regarding this, but the only news they had, was the network would be down for at least 1-2 days while they worked on getting it back online.

Well as you can imagine, I have been pretty annoyed with the fact that my progress with MLO has been officially halted, but I am sure they are working as best they can to rectify these problems. Until then, I have reverted back to playing my offline master league and BAL modes. These have kept me occupied, but I still can't wait to get back online. 

This is the latest message from the Official PlayStation site:

"We sincerely regret that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have been suspended, and we are working around the clock to bring them both back online. Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure. Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.

We thank you for your patience to date and ask for a little more while we move towards completion of this project. We will continue to give you updates as they become available.

Follow us on Twitter @PlayStationEU for live updates.

Thank you for your patience."

I will try to keep an update of their progress over the next few days and lets all hope they get it sorted!

Thanks for visiting,

Bob