[viddler id=7d63c65a&w=550&h=333] Kazuo Hirai, the executive Deputy President of Sony, announced the service restoration in a video. This morning, Sony PlayStation Network is back online in all of the U.S., Canada, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico and South America, according to the map posted on PlayStation.Blog and PlayStation's official Twitter account. In order to regain access to PSN users must install the latest software update (3.61) and change their passwords. As a security measure, users can only change their passwords on the PS3 they used to activate their accounts. Users who have not downloaded any content will receive an email with a link to change their password instead. The service restoration process is far from smooth. Some users reported that the network again went down for maintenance after going online for a short period. It's unclear if Sony sees a horde of users requesting password resets, but its servers are definitely not ready for it, evident when the company tweeted:

"We're expereiencing [sic] a heavy load of password resets and will be turning off the services for 30 minutes to clear the queue." "If you've requested your password reset, it's taking time to clear all of the ISPs, so please give it a bit of time to reach your email."

According to Bloomberg, the attack on Sony's infrastructure a month ago originated from Amazon Web Services. Using fake information, the hackers signed up for Amazon EC2 and initiated the attack through the rented server. Coincidentally, Amazon EC2 also went down two days after the Sony's attack, resulting in extensive downtime on some of the most popular websites.