Phantom Squad wants to take down Playstation network and Xbox Live on Christmas

Playstation network and Xbox Live risk to be taken down on Christmas by an anonymous group of hackers known as the Phantom Squad.

If you remember, last Christmas, both PlayStation network and Xbox Live were took down by hackers belonging to the group of hackers known as Lizard Squad. It looks like this year this new tradition may continue, all because a group called. posted on twitter a message announcing their intentions of taken down again both PlayStation network and Xbox live, menacing to keep down the services for a week.

“We are going to shut down Xbox live and PSN this year on christmas. And we are going to keep them down for one week straight #DramaAlert”

Phantom Squad (@PhantomSqaud) December 9, 2015

We have no information on the group, but probably the group wants to gain popularity, and these targets during the Christmas represent a great opportunity.

If they succeed, they will get the attention they want.

The intent of the Phantom Squad is to demonstrate that “cyber security does not exist” in both gaming platforms.

Phantom Squad also said that both platforms are vulnerable to attacks, and they add that they were able to take down Xbox live during the weekend:

Microsoft hasn’t confirmed the attack, but it confirmed that issues occurred in the Xbox live network on Saturday afternoon:

“We are currently investigating issues w/ signing in, managing friends, & matchmaking. Updates here while we work: http://xbx.lv/XBLstus,” said Microsoft’s XBox Support Twitter account.

As mention before, last Christmas, both platforms faced the same issue, the group Lizard Squad hit both networks with a powerful DDoS attack, the services provided by Sony and Microsoft were paralyzed for several days. After the attacks, an 18-year-old was arrested in the UK, on January 16th along with a 22-year-old Vincent Omari that was accused to be a member of the Lizard Squad group, but he always denied it and was released on bail.

Phantom Squad claims not be linked with Lizard Squad, and declared to be a group of Gray Hat hackers that like the popular Anonymous have declared war on the Islamic State group.

Elsio Pinto (@high54security) is at the moment the Lead McAfee Security Engineer at Swiss Re, but he also as knowledge in the areas of malware research, forensics, ethical hacking. He had previous experiences in major institutions being the European Parliament one of them. He is a security enthusiast and tries his best to pass his knowledge. He also owns his own blog McAfee Security Engineer at Swiss Re, but he also as knowledge in the areas of malware research, forensics, ethical hacking. He had previous experiences in major institutions being the European Parliament one of them. He is a security enthusiast and tries his best to pass his knowledge. He also owns his own blog McAfee Security Engineer at Swiss Re, but he also as knowledge in the areas of malware research, forensics, ethical hacking. He had previous experiences in major institutions being the European Parliament one of them. He is a security enthusiast and tries his best to pass his knowledge. He also owns his own blog http://high54security.blogspot.com/

Edited by Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – hacking, Shodan)

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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