The problem has now been identified as an unplanned maintenance, but it had users all over the world quite worried, and for good reason.

I am sure you all remember what happened last year. Playstation Network got hacked, and millions of user details were leaked all around the world, becoming one of the worst cases of data leakage to ever hit the internet. It came shortly after sites were being taken out, and Anonymous were in the firing line, and also LulzSec, who may or may not be affiliated with Anonymous. Both hacking groups then went on to damage and take out a number of other large companies and websites including Sony’s other websites and developments.

Now, a year on, over the past few days we have seen a number of large websites suffering from hacking. These are LinkedIn, the massive Professional Social Networking website. Last.FM, worlds biggest social music website, and eHarmony, a massive dating website. Now suddenly Playstation network goes down, and everyone starts getting worried.

Sony have explained that it was unplanned maintenance, but this may have not been the case. Perhaps Sony were able to defend against another hacking attempt, and this is what allowed them to recover after just a day, whereas last year the system was out of bounds to users for many weeks until the problem could be resolved and an official investigation into the matter could be completed without the interruption of network traffic from the millions of gamers on the PlayStation console all over the world.

Sony went down without any access at all all over the world for millions of users.  The error that everyone received was the following:

The service is currently undergoing maintenance.

This message came up for millions of users when they tried to connect to the Playstation Store. Users also had a problem connecting from their PS Vita devices.

Online gaming was affected on titles such as Uncharted 3 and Battlefield 3.

After many more hours, the system was finally restored and is now fully operating.