WASHINGTON – Sony is giving PlayStation users a five-day membership extension after hackers disrupted the company’s network on Christmas Day.

Many users who received the console under the tree were unable to connect to the network because of the distributed denial of service attack, in which large amounts of traffic made it difficult or impossible for users.

In “A Holiday Thank You” blog post,  Sony “wanted to show our appreciation for your patience by offering all PlayStation Plus members that had an active membership or free trial on December 25th a membership extension of five days.”

The extension will be automatically applied, so users need not take any action, according to Sony.

In addition, Sony says it will announce later this month a 10 percent discount code good for a one-time discount in the PlayStation store.

Hacker group Lizard Squad claimed responsibility on Twitter for the Dec. 25 attack, which lasted three days.

Mashable reports a member of the Lizard Squad in the UK had his residence raided earlier this week, and was arrested by police.

Follow @WTOP and @WTOPtech on Twitter and WTOP on Facebook.