Hackers who claimed responsibility for taking down Sony’s PlayStation Network and attacking other Sony sites earlier this week say they have reconsidered their methods and will stop attacking PSN “at this time.”

The hacker co-op, dubbed Anonymous, writes on its news blog:

Anonymous is not attacking the PSN at this time. Sony’s official position is that the PSN is undergoing maintenance. We realize that targeting the PSN is not a good idea. We have therefore temporarily suspended our action, until a method is found that will not severely impact Sony customers.

Anonymous is on your side, standing up for your rights. We are not aiming to attack customers of Sony. This attack is aimed solely at Sony, and we will try our best to not affect the gamers, as this would defeat the purpose of our actions. If we did inconvenience users, please know that this was not our goal.

The group is allegedly messing with Sony in retaliation for the company’s attempts to prosecute an alleged hacker who broke down the PS3’s security system.

After initially dismissing the outages as maintenance, Sony acknowledged the possibility it was under attack to GameSpot:

“We are currently investigating [the network instability], including the possibility of targeted behavior of an outside party. If this is indeed caused by such act, we want to once again thank our customers who have borne the brunt of the attack through interrupted service. Our engineers are working to restore and maintain the services, and we appreciate our customers’ continued support.”

Greetings, Sony Customers And PS3 Users. We are Anonymous. [AnonNews via Destructoid]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.