SONY PLAYSTATION NETWORK BACK ONLINE AFTER CYBERATTACK CRIPPLED AND DOWNED SYSTEM FOR THE HOLIDAY

Gamers received a late Christmas gift Sunday when Sony’s PlayStation Network was put back online after a crippling cyberattack brought the system down for the holiday.

The popular gaming network was taken down by a hacker group on Christmas Day — much to the dismay of youngsters who received PlayStation consoles as presents.

The hacker collective called Lizard Squad took responsibility for flooding the system with traffic and knocking it offline.

But a spokeswoman for PlayStation said the games would go on after the hack attack.

“PlayStation Network is back online,” said Catherine Jensen, vice president of consumer experience.

“As you probably know, PlayStation Network and some other gaming services were attacked over the holidays with artificially high levels of traffic designed to disrupt connectivity and online gameplay,” she said.

Microsoft’s online network for its Xbox game system was also taken down by hackers on Christmas.

That “denial of service” attack was thwarted, and Microsoft was able to restore its system on Saturday, while Sony was still patching up its own problems.

Sony admitted that hackers have become a nuisance.

“The video-game industry has been experiencing high levels of traffic designed to disrupt connectivity and online gameplay,” Jensen said.