After this past week’s cyber attacks on Xbox Live and The PlayStation Network, many of us are left wondering why these attacks occured at all. Lizard Squad, the hackers behind the denial-of-service takedown, recently spoke to The Daily Dot regarding their reasoning for the holiday attack.
“The simplest explanation, Lizard Squad told me, was that they did it for the lulz. The hackers also said they wanted to exploit the “incompetence” of Microsoft and Sony, and to prove that anyone who promised to stop them was a liar.” via The Daily Dot
The statement and attacks Lizard Squad made were quite profound due to the PlayStation Network barely getting members back online as of yesterday evening, while Xbox Live members saw online service the day following the attacks. Members of the group under aliases Vinnie Omari and Ryan Clearly, claimed in their interview, that they had immediate access to large network infrastructures and had other members with particular skill sets to help spread their message. Also they stated that they are working on obtaining some key routing equipment that services the Internet, while having access to underwater cables that service internet servers in the US and Europe.
Several individuals tried to stop the ongoing cyber attacks namely hacker group Finest Squad and internet entrepreneur, Kim Dotcom. The Finest Squad seemed dead set on stopping the attacks but was unable to and set their aims at releasing personal information on members of Lizard Squad. The cyber attack group claimed all doxed/released information was false. Meanwhile Kim Dotcom offered MegaPrivacy vouchers in hopes of stopping the attack. Unfortunately this only temporarily prevented the attacks from happening at the time and Lizard Squad went forth with their denial-of-service plan, while allegedly selling the vouchers on the black market.
For now it seems all services are back online for both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. There is no further news, at the moment, if Lizard Squad plans to attack Microsoft or Sony again. Please inform your network provider of any issues logging into Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network. You can read the entire interview at The Daily Dot website.