Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Sony’s PlayStation Network both faced technical issues yesterday, leaving many users unable to log in.
What’s more, the hacker group known as Lizard Squad has claimed responsibility for the connection outage.
If that name rings a bell, it’s because earlier this month the group also said it was behind a different attack on PSN, as well as an attack on XBL the week before.
Lizard Squad were also the purported enactors of an attack on EA around the Destiny game release.
The holiday season does typically see increased usage due to new consoles and games being gifted for Christmas, but it’s predictable and so Microsoft and Sony usually allocate sufficient resources.
For many, the services were inaccessible for most of the day, with a select few demanding compensation from the firms for the outage.
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The most obvious way to take down the services would have been through a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, whereby the firm’s servers would be flooded with packets, overloading them and causing a crash.
Sony posted the following message to Twitter at 20:54 yesterday: “We are still looking into the PSN issues reported earlier. Thanks again for your continued patience today.”
Microsoft, meanwhile, posted a message to its Xbox Live Status support page that read: “Hi Xbox members. Are you having a rough time signing in to Xbox Live? We’re working to get this figured out right away.”
It added: “Keep trying to sign in when you get a chance. We’re grateful for your patience, and we’ll be sure to loop you in on our progress in 30 minutes.”
Interestingly, Kim Dotcom – founder of Mega file-sharing service – offered the group 3000 Mega premium vouchers to call off the attack.
Dotcom tweeted: “Asking Mega management to approve 3000 MegaPrivacy premium vouchers for LizardMafia if they stop attacking Xbox Live and PSN immediately.”
He then tweeted later again, claiming to have resolved all of the issues: “A Christmas Miracle. How MegaPrivacy saved Xbox & PlayStation from the LizardMafia Attack. Enjoy your games!”
