Sony Computer Entertainment's President and Group CEO Andrew House is reflected in the display screen of a PlayStation Vita handheld game console
Sony Computer Entertainment's President and Group CEO Andrew House is reflected in the display screen of a PlayStation Vita handheld game console as he speaks during an interview with Reuters in Makuhari, east of Tokyo September 18, 2014. Sony Corp's game division head said he hopes the unit can raise its profit outlook for a second time this financial year as sales of the latest PlayStation console and subscription services for games and other content far exceed expectations. Reuters/Yuya

Sony PlayStation website was allegedly under a cyber-attack on Monday, Dec 8. Sony Computer Entertainment confirmed that its website had suffered a blackout for a couple of hours.

According to the Tokyo company, the problem was globally fixed after a couple of hours. While there is not sign that any material has been stolen, the cause of the blackout is under investigation. The alleged cyber-attack comes after Sony Pictures Entertainment's computer systems were allegedly hacked last week to leak its unreleased movies and other confidential information on the net. North Korea, among the primary suspects, denied its involvement in the incident. Huffington Post reported that there was still no connection between the Sony Pictures and PlayStation incidents.

Lizard Squad, a hacking group, apparently claimed responsibility for the alleged cyber-attack on the PlayStation website by tweeting "PSN Login #offline." It is the same group of hackers that claimed the responsibility for a disruption to the PlayStation network earlier in 2014. Hackers apparently generate such a huge number of fake visitors to the PlayStation network that legitimate users were denied access to it. Lizard Squad also warned earlier about a domestic U.S. flight with a Sony executive among the passengers carrying explosives. The flight was diverted by American Airlines to a nearby airport. There were 77 million Sony user accounts that had been compromised by hackers in 2011. The company claimed that the computer system had been upgraded to ensure tighter security.

When users visited the PlayStation website, it showed "Page Not Found! It's not you. It's the internet's fault." Sony Entertainment, on the other hand, responded to the issue through Twitter. It said that it was aware of the problem that users were not able to connect to the PlayStation network. The Japanese company thanked its users for their patience while it continued to investigate the issue. BBC reported that Lizard Squad had also claimed responsibility for a similar attack on Microsoft Xbox network in the previous week. The Xbox network suffered a distributed denial of service attack aka DDOS that prevented users from going online. The hacking group said that it was a "small dose" of what it was going to do during Christmas.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au