Homeland Security looking into PSN outage

Law enforcement agencies are already looking into the PlayStation Network outage and data breach. Now the Department of Homeland Security is joining the investigation, according to a report on NextGov, a site dedicated to covering the intersection of technology and government.

"The Department of Homeland Security is aware of the recent cyber intrusion to Sony's PlayStation Network and Qriocity music service," DHS spokesman Chris Ortman told the site. "DHS' US Computer Emergency Readiness Team [CERT] is working with law enforcement, international partners, and Sony to assess the situation."

CERT is a subagency dedicated to helping companies that are subject to cyberattacks evaluate their vulnerabilities and then recommending steps to remedy them. The goal is to take the lessons learned from the attacks and then offer them to other government agencies and private companies to promote overall cybersecurity.

"We're all in this together," said Patrick Burke, a senior vice president in the national security sector at SRA International, a DHS contractor. "We all need to understand that. There's an adversary that we're trying to defeat."

NextGov also reconfirmed that the FBI is helping Sony track down the hackers whose attack has kept the PSN down for a ninth day. "The FBI is aware of the reports concerning the alleged intrusion into the Sony online game server and we have been in contact with Sony concerning this matter," FBI Special Agent Darrell Foxworth said in a statement. "We are presently reviewing the available information in an effort to determine the facts and circumstances concerning this alleged criminal activity."

Anyone with additional knowledge of the PSN hack should call the FBI at (858) 565-1255 or file a report online via the Internet Crime Complaint Center.