During holiday season in 2014, both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network faced devious attacks that took down their systems temporarily. The supposed “Lizard Squad” that took responsibility for it has ended with six arrests in the United Kingdom – all of which have connections to the attacks.
Pinpointing the Suspects
All six suspects are British teens that have been taken into police custody after the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency found traces that connected the teens to purchases of the “Lizard Stresser” that was used in the attacks. The Lizard Stresser is an online service where people pay money to have websites attacked with such force that it could have them down for up to eight hours.
In short, a DDoS (distributed denial of service attack) was launched with the Lizard Stresser that caused both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live to receive fake data, overloading it to the point where the servers were unable to handle incoming users.
Since the attack rendered the holiday season mute for some players, Sony had to rectify the incident by offering their PlayStation Network members an extended subscription status, discounted purchases, and other benefits due to this mishap. Though the fault of the DDoS was neither on Sony or Microsoft’s end, they had to take responsibility for the holes in their security.
While all suspects are between the ages of 15 and 18, it’s unsure at the moment how charges will work in the event the six are found guilty of committing the malicious attacks against Sony and Microsoft. There’s still a lot of work to be done and information to be found before any decision is made.
What charges do you envision for these six teens? Do you think they were just “messing around”? Share your thoughts below!
