Image caption The PlayStation Network allows gamers to take part in multiplayer titles via the internet 
 
 Sony's PlayStation Network was forced offline for much of Sunday by a cyber-attack in what appears to be a campaign against several online gaming services. 
 
 Microsoft's XBox Live, Blizzard's Battle.net, and Grinding Gear Games are among others to have reported being disrupted over the weekend. 
 
 The attacks coincided with a bomb scare involving a flight carrying a Sony executive. 
 
 An American Airlines jet was diverted after a threat was made online. 
 
 A warning that the flight - from Dallas-Fort Worth to San Diego - was carrying explosives was subsequently repeated by a Twitter account that had been used to claim responsibility for the online attacks. 
 
 John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, had been tweeting about his firm's efforts to combat a "large scale DDoS" before posting a message saying he was about to board the plane. 
 
 DDoS stands for distributed denial of service attack - a technique in which many computers are used to flood an online service with requests in an attempt to overload its systems. 
 
 Image caption Blizzard's Diablo III has faced disruption after Battle.net was attacked 
 
 After the threatened plane landed in Phoenix, Arizona, Mr Smedley tweeted: "Yes, my plane was diverted. Not going to discuss more than that. Justice will find these guys." 
 
 A spokeswoman for Sony said that the FBI was now investigating the diversion. However, the Bureau has yet to issue a statement of its own. 
 
 Jihadist links 
 
 A Twitter account that has claimed responsibility for attacking Sony and the other video games firms has linked the attacks to the jihadist group Islamic State, posting: "Kuffar [non-believers] don't get to play videogames until bombing of the ISIL stops." 
 
 It also makes several references to Isis - the former name used by the Islamic militants. 
 
 But it is unclear whether this is a diversionary tactic, since an earlier post by the same account states: "Sony, yet another large company, but they aren't spending the waves of cash they obtain on their customers' PSN service. End the greed." 
 
 To complicate matters another hacker, who is associated with the Anonymous hacking collective, has claimed responsibility for the DDoS on the PlayStation Network, saying they mounted it to highlight vulnerabilities in Sony's system. 
 
 This hacker has criticised the other claims of responsibility and posted screenshots that purport to support their case. 
 
 Xbox disruption 
 
 Sony's PlayStation Network was notably taken offline for more than three weeks in 2011 after a hack attack that compromised its members' personal details and exposed their encrypted debit and credit card accounts. 
 
 However, the firm's social media manager has sought to reassure subscribers about the latest attack. 
 
 "We have seen no evidence of any intrusion to the network and no evidence of any unauthorized access to users' personal information," Sid Shuman blogged. 
 
 Image caption The Xbox Live support site continues to report problems 
 
 "In light of today's issue, the networks will not undergo the regularly scheduled maintenance, which was planned for Monday, August 25. 
 
 "We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused by this issue." 
 
 Microsoft declined to "comment on the root cause" of disruption its rival Xbox Live online gaming service has faced. 
 
 However, a message on is support site stated that Xbox One owners were experiencing "server unavailability issues" when trying to join other players in online games. 
 
 The webpage also mentions problems faced by owners of the Xbox 360 trying to connect to Diablo III's party chat feature. 
 
 This appears to be a consequence of an attack on Activision Blizzard's gaming service Battle.net, which also supports World of Warcraft and Starcraft titles. 
 
 "Battle.net game services have recently been subject to DDoS attacks. We worked diligently along with our ISPs [internet service providers] to improve the situation and currently are seeing more stability," said a message posted to the facility's site. 
 
 Image caption The PC role-playing game, Path of Exile, has also been struck by a DDoS attack 
 
 Meanwhile, Grinding Gear Games posted a message on the Twitter account of its game Path of Exile on Sunday, saying: "We're having some server issues due to a DDoS attack. Should have it sorted out soon. Sorry for the inconvenience!" 
 
 The incidents follow reports of earlier DDoS attacks on other multiplayer titles on Friday, including Eve Online, League of Legends, RuneScape and Guild Wars 2. 

 American Airlines flight 362 en route to San Diego was diverted to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport on Sunday after a hacking group targeting the Playstation Network (PSN) tweeted a bomb threat to the airline company. 
 
 .@AmericanAir We have been receiving reports that @j_smedley‘s plane #362 from DFW to SAN has explosives on-board, please look into this. — Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014 
 
 The threat appears to have been made specifically to inconvenience John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, who was on board the flight, in addition to a cyber attack on Sony’s online service that has resulted in PSN being offline for most of the day. The group, identifying itself as Lizard Squad, also tweeted a video from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks of planes flying into the World Trade Center with the hashtag #PrayForFlight362 to Smedley’s Twitter account. 
 
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 American Airlines confirmed that the flight was rerouted “due to a security related issue,” and Smedley addressed the incident on his own Twitter account: 
 
 Yes. My plane was diverted. Not going to discuss more than that. Justice will find these guys. — John Smedley (@j_smedley) August 24, 2014 
 
 Sony released a statement to Shacknews indicating that the FBI was investigating the threat but that no further details could be released “as this has now become a matter of national security.” Lizard Squad had made several tweets earlier in the day referencing Islamic State, the jihadist group terrorizing Syria and Iraq. 
 
 Kuffar don’t get to play videogames until bombing of the ISIL stops. #ISIL #PSN #ISIS — Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014 
 
 The kuffar plays call of duty while the ISIS responds to the call of duty. #ISIS — Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014 
 
 The seriousness of these tweets is questionable, as the group later laughed at the suggestion that the incident had become a matter of national security in a Facebook post. 
 
 Lizard Squad launched a cyber attack against PSN early Sunday morning, resulting in gamers being unable to play online or access the Sony store. Popular video apps like Netflix and Amazon Video appear to be unaffected. Sony confirmed that the denial-of-service attack had resulted in a PSN outage on the company’s official blog. The company also claimed that no personal information of customers with PSN accounts was compromised as a result of the cyber attack. 
 
 Lizard Squad has since claimed to have attacked Xbox Live, the online service for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Xbox One gaming platforms. Microsoft customer support has confirmed a disruption of service. 

 TOKYO (AP) — Sony says its PlayStation Network service for video games was unusable from Sunday until Monday afternoon after being flooded by an online attack. 
 
 Sony Computer Entertainment spokesman Satoshi Nakajima said Monday the problems are fixed. 
 
 Separately, he said an American Airlines flight carrying Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley from Dallas to San Diego was diverted to Phoenix about the same time as the attack. 
 
 An individual or group called Lizard Squad claimed through a Twitter account there might be explosives on the plane. The account also claimed responsibility for the attack on PlayStation Network. 
 
 Sony's network was compromised for about a month in 2011, including the personal data of 77 million accounts. 
 
 Sony says there was no breach of personal information in the latest incident.
– Multiple major gaming networks faced technical trouble this weekend, and reports suggest hackers are to blame. Sony's PlayStation Network was down yesterday; Microsoft's Xbox Live and Blizzard's Battle.net were among other services apparently affected, the BBC reports. Meanwhile, a Sony executive was threatened in the air: The president of Sony Online Entertainment was onboard an American Airlines flight that received a bomb threat, forcing the Dallas to San Diego flight to land in Phoenix. Exec John Smedley had been tweeting about a "large scale" hack of Sony's systems; he then tweeted that he was boarding a plane. A Twitter account for a group calling itself Lizard Squad said it was behind the hack and also noted the bomb threat, the AP reports. The same account, Breitbart notes, earlier tweeted that "Kuffar don't get to play videogames until bombing of the ISIL stops." (Kuffar refers to non-Muslims, while ISIL refers to the Islamic State, the BBC notes). But who is responsible for the attack isn't clear: A hacker with the Anonymous group also claimed to be behind the gaming attack, accompanying the claim with screenshots. That hacker says the effort was aimed at exposing Sony's security issues. No user data was breached in this attack, Sony says, per the AP, and the company says the system has been fixed.