Lizard Squad warned of an attack on Xbox Live (XBL) and PlayStation Network (PSN) services on Christmas Day, following brief attacks on PSN, Twitch.TV and OnLive in the past.
The hacking group, known for the use of DDoS botnets capable of taking servers offline, have become heavily active in the holiday season, after a half-year hiatus following its Twitter account ban.
True to its word, Lizard Squad took down both online platforms on Christmas Day, ruining the fun for millions of PS4, PS3, PS Vita, Xbox One and Xbox 360 owners, who were unable to sign-in to online accounts.
Microsoft was the first to get service back online, around 12 hours after the initial attack, however Sony struggled to bring power back, taking upward of 50 hours to bring back service to over 10 million PS4 customers.
In interviews, Lizard Squad claim its attacks are showing the lack of security on the platforms, with one representative of the hacking group claiming Microsoft should “buy more bandwidth and technical stuff” to fix the issues.
Gamers and other hacking groups have not been pleased with Lizard Squad’s merciless attacks, with the Anonymous hacking collective beginning a war to get the Lizard Squad members found.
It is the second major hack Sony has had to deal with in the past month, after Sony Pictures went offline for a week, and hackers stole 100TB of internal data. This data is now being uploaded online, exposing the secrets of Sony Pictures.
There is no connection between the two hacks, considering one is espionage and cyber terrorism, the other a simple DDoS attack, shutting down servers for a few hours.
A few years ago, servers going offline might not have been such a big deal, but new games like Destiny and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare both heavily rely on always-on internet.
