Categories: Cyber CrimeHacking

Xbox Live service brought down by a DDoS attack run by The Lizard Squad team

Xbox Live online service was not available overnight after hackers belonging to the  Lizard Squad hacking team hit it with a DDoS attack.

Last night the Microsoft Xbox Live’s online service was interrupted, after Sony Pictures another company suffered a major cyber attack. This time the Xbox Live service was hit by a severe DDoS attack that has been coordinated by the Lizard Squad hacking group, the team that calls itself the “ddos kings” in its brief Twitter bio.

“Xbox Live #offline,” the Lizard Squad group tweeted at 5:37 p.m. Monday, later adding that the shutdown is “a small dose of what’s to come on Christmas.”

LizardSquad Xbox live serviceLizardSquad Xbox live service

By Tuesday morning, Microsoft announced that all its Xbox Live services were “up and running.” The support team working at Xbox Live service worked overnight to restore normal operations, the company has kept updated it numerous customers providing updates via the Twitter account used by its support team.

“We’re currently working to resolve this. Thanks for your patience,” is the message posted via Twitter by one of Xbox’s support team members before midnight Monday.

The company said it was a “busy night.” as reported by the CBC news.

The hacking group, which is taking responsibility for the attack on the Xbox Live’s online service, in August 2014 targeted another giant of the gaming industry, Sony PlayStation. The PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network were hit by a major DDoS Attack and experienced a mass outages for North American users.

“Like other major networks around the world, the PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network have been impacted by an attempt to overwhelm our network with artificially high traffic.” announced Sony.

In that occasion, the hackers of the Lizard Squad group have hit a range of gaming services including Battle.net, League of Legends, Sony Online Entertainment titles, PSN and others.

In a separate incident, the Lizard Squad also claimed through its Twitter account that explosives might be on an American Airlines flight on which was flying the Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley causing the flight deviation.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs –  XBox Live online service, hacking)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

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