The Hacker War.

[Sephiroth]

The hacker war that may decide whether console gamers can play online Christmas Day (update)

Two groups of self-described hackers have been fighting for nearly a month over a threat to take down the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live on Christmas Day.

Lizard Squad (this new Twitter account was suspended as I wrote this story) announced in early December its plans to take down both online gaming networks for Christmas, describing itself as the "next generation Grinch." But then another hacker group,The Finest Squad, emerged, saying that it would stop the group and bring its members to justice.

The back and forth between the two has resulted in both groups claiming victories through doxxing, hacked Twitter accounts and websites and even an arrest.

The turmoil started in August when Lizard Squad made a bit of a name for itself by claiming responsibility for Blizzard and PlayStation Network outages and a tweeted bomb threat which diverted the flight of Sony Online Entertainment head John Smedley.

The group returned in September, claiming responsibility for attacks on the servers for a slew of games including Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Destiny and Grand Theft Auto Online. Then on Dec. 1, the group said it once more took the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live offline.

The group tweeted that it was preparing for a larger attack at Christmas and that the Dec. 1 attack was just a "small dose of what's to come."

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Source: polygon.com/2014/12/23/7440739/the-secret-hacker-war-that-will-decide-whether-console-gamers-can

Hacker group lizard squad taken down by Finest squad, police

Christmas comes early as white hats totally pwn script-kiddie newbs

Since August, a hacker group calling itself the Lizard Squad -- self-described as a handful of 'guys with too much free time on their hands' -- have been entertaining themselves by spoiling other people's fun. Primarily, they've been doing this by attacking online video game services and knocking them offline. An opposing "white hat" group of network security researchers have now exposed members of the Lizard Squad group, leading to the arrest of three members, some of whom had also been involved in bomb threats and other domestic terrorism.

The white-hat hacker group, known as "Finest Squad," was formed with a goal to expose Lizard Squad and keep online gaming services running through the holiday season. After their first series of online attacks, the members of the Lizard Squad decided to branch out into bomb threats -- delaying an American Airlines flight carrying John Smedley, the president of Sony Online Entertainment. This caused the FBI to get involved, but Lizard Squad didn't seem worried -- as it said the FBI had "[zero] physical evidence."

The group went quiet for a while, and returned early this month, taking down the Playstation network, and for a time it was suspected to be a part of the Guardians of Peace operation against Sony Entertainment. Lizard Squad announced that they intended to be the "next-generation Grinch," and keep gaming services down through Christmas.

During that time, the Finest Squad group was apparently communicating with Twitter's legal department about the group's message origins, and separately investigating what tools were used for the DDoS attacks. On December 6, the Finest Squad twitter account announced a breakthrough, and began tweeting IP addresses for the Lizard Squad's servers. Information continued to be revealed the rest of the day and through the week, including comments about Lizard Squad's "methodologies.".

This was quickly followed by photos and personal information about Lizard Squad members. On December 9, Finest Squad posted that one member of the group had been arrested, and linked to a Polk County, Florida Sheriff's Department press release about the arrest of a "17-year-old male suspect in Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada" who was also connected to three incidents of faked bomb-threats against a local High School and a private home.

As of this week, Finest Squad has celebrated three arrests. The Lizard Squad posted a message on its site indicating that it was disbanding following the arrests.



By Electronista Staff



Source: electronista.com/articles/14/12/16/christmas.comes.early.as.white.hats.totally.pwn.sc ript.kiddie.newbs/