Gamers around the world had a very unpleasant surprise when they tried to connect to their favorite game console, the PlayStation. Apparently, the PlayStation network was hacked by a group of cybercriminals who call themselves the Lizard Squad. The PlayStation network was not the only thing affected. The Lizard Squad also messed with the PlayStation store, so anyone who wanted to make a purchase on the official store, couldn’t do it. Both PlayStation network and store have been put offline and are unavailable.

Sony did not give any official statements, but it is very clear that the PlayStation outage was not cause by some technical maintenance. The cybercriminals from the Lizard Squad tweeted a message in which they claim PlayStation network was hacked by them. They left the following message:

“PSN Login #offline #LizardSquad”.

This is not the first time Sony gets hacked. Before the PlayStation network was hacked earlier this week, Sony suffered a cyberattack which made some of its important upcoming movies leak. Also, Sony employees’ private information was leaked on the internet following the attack.

Sony acknowledges some of the recent problems, like the connection issues and confirmed it on its official Twitter. Sony said that the connection problems are being looked into:

“We are aware that users are having issues connecting to PSN. Thanks for your patience as we investigate.”

The cybercriminal group’s message on Tweeter is short but it kind of takes responsibility for the recent PlayStation attacks. From what it says, it seems that this is not the first time they attack major companies. Some speculate that the PlayStation network was hacked by the same cybercriminals who hacked into Sony’s network a while back, but Sony has not confirmed any rumors yet.

Apart from the PlayStation network, the hackers also messed with the PlayStation official store, making it inaccessible to the customers. It is not clear yet if the PlayStation network and store were hacked by the same Lizard Squad group. If anyone is trying to visit the PlayStation store they will be greeted by a message saying:

“Page Not Found! It’s not you. It’s the Internet’s fault.”