An American Airlines plane has been grounded with the president of Sony Online Entertainment on board after hackers claimed, via Twitter, that there were explosives in the cargo. The incident followed a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Playstation's servers on Sunday.
Two separate hacker groups claimed responsibility for the DDoS attack, which, according to Sony, inflicted an "artificially high" amount of traffic on the PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network.
Lizard Squad and Famed God took to social media, Twitter and YouTube, respectively, to claim credit for the hack on the entertainment company.
Today we planted the ISIS flag on @Sony's servers #ISIS #jihad pic.twitter.com/zvqXb2f5XI— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014
In a statement on its website, the company announced that no personal information had been released in the attack.
At 1.30 p.m. ET, the Lizard Squad took to Twitter to also claim that an American Airlines plane, with Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley on board, was carrying explosives.
.@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
An hour and a half later, Smedley tweeted that he hated American Airlines just after his plane, which was en route from San Diego to Dallas, was diverted due to "security issues" with the cargo. Flight 362 had 179 passengers on board and six crew members when it landed safely in Phoenix just over two hours later.
"It diverted to Phoenix due to a security related issue, and the flight was met by authorities," American Airlines spokeswoman Michelle Mohr told WFAA News.
#BREAKING @AmericanAir confirms #Flight362 from DFW diverted due to security threat - 185 people on board - all passengers now deplaned.— Sandra Turner (@wfaasandra) August 24, 2014
The FBI is investigating the incident, Kotaku reported. There has been no confirmation that the two incidents are connected, but a final tweet by Smedley indicates that he believes it was not a coincidence.
Yes. My plane was diverted. Not going to discuss more than that. Justice will find these guys.— John Smedley (@j_smedley) August 24, 2014