Written by: Vandita
Lizard Squad, the notorious gang of hackers, kept attacking Sony’s PlayStation Network and Microsoft’s Xbox Live regularly in 2014. On August 18, 2014, the gang took the servers of League of Legends offline with a DDoS attack; this was their first attack. Within a week, Lizard Squad took down PlayStation Network for the first time. They harmed Xbox Live early December, PSN in the week later, and both the services during Christmas, spoiling the holidays for many gamers. And, they did all this for the lulz. 
But was this the only reason that prompted these ‘bunch of guys with too much free time’ to shut down online gaming services? WinBeta, in an encrypted connection, asked the group about their inspiration and methodology. Here’s what Lizard Squad revealed…
Taking down PlayStation Network and Xbox Live did start for the laughs, but eventually they found a bigger motivation – to force these companies to upgrade the security on their networks. The group found it easier to takedown Microsoft’s Xbox Live as the company had almost nothing in terms of security. It was a bit difficult and took more time to affect Sony’s PlayStation Network as the company recently upgraded it security.
Lizard Squad chose Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to target these two networks because they believed “it would anger and reach the largest amount of people”. The group offered no timeframe to stop these attacks. They want to continue until the companies “learned from their security issues”.
When asked if there were other targets in the near future, Lizard Squad said they “could take down NASDAQ if they wanted to damage the economy”, but added that’s not their goal.
Sony and Microsoft both had systems in place to protect themselves from a variety of cyber attacks including DDoS, but neither was prepared for a highly motivated attack of this scale. Even though neither company had stated the downed networks were the result of a DDoS attack, for now, both are rushing to upgrade the security on their systems.
Read the interview in full here.
Related Articles:
– Lizard Squad Attacks Tor, But Falls Flat On It’s Face
Anonymous recommends: Protect your PC and mobile devices from hackers & governments and surf anonymously
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This is genius. But I’m just wondering why aren’t they trying to hack governments? I don’t know a thing about hacking but I still love it. If they’re able to hack the government then try should expose all kinda of sick stuff. I like it that Anonmyous is making something for the better too.
As clever as that sounds, I do not believe that was the reason Lizard Squad took down
PSN and Xbox Live.
they didn’t hack anything a DDoS attack is not hacking it’s just a bunch of wannabe hackers putting a service offline because they found more bandwidth didn’t know what to do with
Agreed! DDoS isn’t hacking lmao.
You guys are idiots… DDoSing is a “Distributed Denial of Service” attack. This requires thousands of computers that Lizard Squad would not buy, but rather hack into and utilise the computers for their own purposes. A DDoS is a very complicated form of hack… learn your facts
Yea hasht5 is right it takes alot of computers to push these companies networks offline. DDOS is a stong method of hacking because of all the RATS you must place which for the 3rd graders lol are remote access tools that the average facebook my life away person has no idea is there on the pc and in there networks. so mr. wes please stop trolling unless you do some research!
Boatz&Hoes or you can just use a Dedicated Server which would be much more efficient than a R.A.T.
Was thinking the same thing, and slightly surprised that anonhq would call it such. As for the idiotic hasht5’s comment below, there’s nothing complicated about a DDoS, and it IS NOT a hack, you’re not accessing servers or programs to bypass or circumvent its authentication or purpose (the definition of hacking in two senses), you’re bombarding it with so many packets that no one else can!
No, DDoS attacks in and of themselves are not hacks. However, either they spent a buttload of money on the servers needed to push that much power, or they created a botnet using other people’s IP addresses and routers through a security/computer… pause for emphasis… HACK. You can’t take down an entire system of dedicated gaming servers with your one home router. You might be lucky to boot a handful of people with a DDoS with nothing but a router, but not anything more. So no DDoS is not a HACK, but what they did to perfom an attack of THAT magnitude? Definitely via various hacks.
Nah, these are just skid fails. Changing their story every two seconds. Hope they all get assraped & shanke in jail.
Wow….err, let’s pray that attacks like these, for example will NOT happened this New Year or anywhere near the future.
Burn in mediocrity, skids.
Me parece en parte bueno el motivo por el cual atacan y seguirán atacando a estos servidores, pues nosotros lo usuarios pagamos por un buen servicio, Microsft y SONY tienen la obligación de mejorar la seguridad de sus servidores, pues para eso les pagamos para mantener siempre un buen servicio, por otra parte me parece malo los ataques, pues estan perjudicando a usuarios que no tienen nada que ver con esta “guerra” nosotros solo queremos disfrutar de un servicio
Bullshit! If this had been their intention, thet wouldn’t let them bribe by Kim dotcom. It doesent make sense anon!
Dumbest.Kids.Ever.Would it not make more sense to just get a damn petition insteadof becoming gaming enemy number 1?Sounds like the parents need to hide the marijuana from the kids because there are no logical human beings this stupid.
Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villian by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengence; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V….. Remember what inspired you Anonymous? Because I do. And I’m not seeing much of that same spark anymore.
man i read This as a fucking rap! Seriously good choices of words!
These kids are idiots. Their attacks have no relation to a networks security. They didn’t “hack” anything.
What’s to say this new explosion in the anonymous legion isn’t fake? Seems very handy that they are picking issues like these losers to handle while real shit goes on in the world. Once anon got the attention of the people, activist and the masses it diverts all the attention towards useless trash? Just smells different from Anonymous.
The first time I heard this lizard squad I just laughed.
Drudgereport.com for real news
If they would want to raise awareness about something they WOULD HAVE taken down NASDAQ (or something that matters)… but as I see it they are just a bunch of 16 year old wankers that do not have the balls to mess with anyone but console gamers! Please do something useful with your time… wankers! (p.s: I have not been in any way affected by their attacks so this opinion is not in any way a rage-post)
this site is fake. gov. run. do not trust it.
@Fuck you Really now? The intelligent arguments and facts you’ve provided seem to check out.. oh wait.. you provided nothing!! Troll…
Btw.. these fucking kids are not hackers.. just a bunch of god damn script kiddies who will realize there are real hackers out there and they probably are in their the real/blackhat hacker’s scopes.
stop giving them any credit for anything.. Ddos is not hacking just being annoying.
Calling Bull shit, they did it for lulz the information on the hackers was released and now they are trying to cover their tracks. Why do they care so much about Sonys and Microsofts security? dumb.
What’s the bet 90% of the people who are commenting on this DOESN’T KNOW THE FIRST THING TO HACKING and are just going off their gut feeling
Is it ironic or merely foolish that childish hackers would hack gaming sites because “they are there.” I might have supported the kids if they felt they were being made the victims of profiteers. I certainly would have understood if they objected to the violent and never ending bloodshed running rampant through many of today’s games. But I find it hard to believe that youthful hackers would be so altruistic as to hack for the benefit of the hackees. Am I out of touch with the young? Perhaps.
Is it ironic or merely foolish that childish hackers would hack gaming sites because “they are there.” I might have supported the kids if they felt they were being made the victims of profiteers. I certainly would have understood if they objected to the violent and never ending bloodshed running rampant through many of today’s games. But I find it hard to believe that youthful hackers would be so altruistic as to hack for the benefit of the hackees. Am I out of touch with the young? Perhaps.
HAHA, they could take down the NASDAQ? I doubt that very much, just a few teenagers being idiots. I would have full respect if Anonymous did something to reveal them to police. Or just hack them back, But I already had respect for them in the first place..
LMFAO. Little butthurt kids with too much free time in the afternoon.
Fucking scrubs.
They are morons who are spoiling the gaming experience for others. Highlighting security issues just isn’t an excuse I am willing to listen to anymore as these tossers had no such intention in the beginning. More socially awkward fucks playing to their egos, if they did have girlfriends you can bet they are ugly like frog balls.