Items tagged with Lizard Squad
If we may impart some words of wisdom to our younger readers out there, it's to choose your role models carefully. It's a piece of advice that comes too late for half a dozen teenagers living in the U.K. who were arrested as part of a sting operation targeting users of hacking group Lizard Squad's Lizard Stresser tool. The Lizard Stresser tool is a piece of software that aids with Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. These attacks typically consist of numerous infected systems pinging a single target with the intent of overwhelming the victim's server. Those arrested for using the tool range in age from 15 to 18 years old. They're suspected of using it to target several different organizations,...
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A teenage member of the notorious hacking group Lizard Squad has received a two-year suspended sentence for numerous cyber crimes. All tallied, he was convicted of 50,700 charges related to computer crimes, and in addition to his two-year suspended sentence, he must also undergo monitoring of his online activities. He will not serve any time behind bars.His name is Julius Kivimaki, or "Zeekill" if going by his online handle. The 17-year-old played a role in the distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Microsoft's Xbox Live and Sony's PlayStation Network in December of last year. Ironically enough, it was Kim Dotcom who convinced Lizard Squad to call off the attacks, which he did by offering...
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It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Lenovo. The company found itself embroiled in a nasty scandal involving Superfish adware that it installed on consumer notebook and desktop systems. Not only did Superfish hijack encrypted web sessions, but it also left its customers susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks. Lenovo offered an apology, issued step-by-step instructions on how to remove Superfish manually, and even released an automated tool to rid systems of the sneaky adware/malware. But the damage was already done; not only did Lenovo’s reputation for making excellent computer systems (especially its ThinkPad range) take a hit, but it now faces a possible class-action lawsuit. And to add...
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Lenovo said it's currently investigating a cyberattack that took the company's website down for several hours earlier this week, though it may not have to look very far. The ornery hacking group known as Lizard Squad is claiming responsibility for the security breach, purportedly as punishment for the recent Superfish scandal. Let's backtrack a quick moment. Lenovo came under fire earlier this month when it was discovered that a piece of bundled software on consumer laptops and desktops was duping security certificates in order to display ads. Called Superfish, the software is a visual search program that would otherwise be a benign, if not annoying piece of adware, except that it's method of...
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As we discovered late last week, Lenovo has been serving up some tainted Superfish via its consumer PCs. Once Lenovo was called out for its heinous actions, the company offered an apology and vowed to remove Superfish from shipping systems (it provided removal instructions and later an automatic removal tool for machines already affected by Superfish). However, the apology apparently wasn’t enough as Lenovo is already facing a lawsuit stemming from Superfish. Now it looks a though hacker group Lizard Squad is retaliating in its own, childish way. At around 4 PM EST, Lenovo.com was showing a slideshow of what appears to be rebellious teenagers as the song...
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The folks at Lizard Squad just can’t get enough of making the lives of others miserable. In the past month, the hacker group claimed responsibility for DDoS attacks that knocked Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network offline on Christmas Day. While Microsoft was able to restore its services within a day or so, Sony took a few days longer to restore PSN services for gamers. Lizard Squad also took credit for an “assist” in helping Guardians of Peace (#GOP) carryout its November attack on Sony. Lizard Squad is at it once again, this time setting its sights on the Malaysia Airlines’ website. Earlier this morning, visitors to MalaysiaAirlines.com were greeted with the tacky headline “404 - Plane Not...
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An 18-year-old man living in the U.K. was picked up and arrested in Southport as part of an investigation into distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that brought down Sony's PlayStation Network (PSN) and Microsoft's Xbox Live service on Christmas Day. The investigation is part of a joint effort between U.K. cybercrime authorities and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).The DDoS attacks carried out by members of the hacking group Lizard Squad caused both services to be overwhelmed with online traffic, which disrupted access. Both Sony and Microsoft were forced to shut down their respective online services as they investigated the matter. Earlier this month, another member of...
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Sony just hasn’t been able to catch a break for the past few months. The company was first the subject of a hack attack by Guardians of Peace (with perhaps an assist by Lizard Squad) and more recently fell victim to Lizard Squad’s Christmas Day attack on the PlayStation Network (and Microsoft’s competing Xbox Live). While it took Microsoft roughly a day to get its Xbox Live services restored, the PlayStation Network didn’t become fully operational again until late Saturday, December 27. “PlayStation Network is back online. As you probably know, PlayStation Network and some other gaming services were attacked over the holidays with artificially high levels of traffic designed to disrupt connectivity...
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Sony is still trying to recover from a crippling hack that rocked its corporate networks in late November. Then attacks, which were carried out due to the planned release of the movie The Interview, resulted in leaked personal information, leaked emails and memos, threats against Sony employees and the families, and threats against movie theaters that attempted to show the film. Despite the threats, Sony ended up releasing the movie in theaters — with a much smaller rollout the initially planned — and online with impressive results. While the publicity and news coverage of the Sony hack is dying down as we enter 2015, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation...
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The DDoS attacks that brought down Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Sony’s PlayStation Network on Christmas Day did not sit well with consumers. But while Kim Dotcom attempted to resolve the issue by giving members of Lizard Squad, the group responsible for the DDoS attacks and looking to profit from its DDoS tool, 3,000 lifetime premium Mega accounts, there are many who wish that the members would be caught. Well, it appears that UK Police took a member of the group into custody. British law enforcement agents arrested 22-year-old Vinnie Omari, a self-professed member of Lizard Squad, on Monday when officials raided his home. The raid was confirmed by Omari who spoke to the...
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Lizard Squad has been in the news quite a bit during 2014, and never for a great reason. Just this past week, the so-called 'hacker' group took down both Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation online services, and backed off to some extent when Internet legend and Mega founder Kim Dotdom intervened. Finally, after a handful of days offline, the services came back earlier this week.You might think that after causing that mess and putting a serious damper on many holidays, Lizard Squad would take a little break. I mean, at least until 2015? Nope! As 2014 comes to a close, the group has decided to unveil a service that will make any website or online service...
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Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Sony’s PlayStation Network were both the targets of DDoS attacks by Lizard Squad during the Christmas holiday. The acts were particularly heinous as Lizard Squad — the group that claimed responsibility for the attacks — picked perhaps the worst time to attack the networks. First of all, it took place during a time when most Microsoft and Sony employees were at home with their families for the holidays instead of working on mission-critical projects in the office. Secondly, people that received shiny new Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles for Christmas were unable to get online to play their new games. Lizard Squad justified its actions as a means to prompt both Microsoft...
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It was a very un-merry Christmas for millions of gamers who scored a Microsoft or Sony game console yesterday, or otherwise wanted to partake in some online console gaming, only to find out that both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network had been rendered unusable due to a DDoS attack. Ah, but of all the unlikely heroes, Kim Dotcom swooped in today like ol' St. Nick and struck a deal with Lizard Squad, the hacker group taking responsibility for the DDoS attacks, to back off so that he could play some Destiny. Dotcom took to Twitter to offer the Lizard Squad (@LizardMafia) 3,000 lifetime premium Mega accounts worth $99 each. Mega, if you're unaware, is Dotcom's newest online venture -- an encrypted...
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Both Sony and Microsoft have been reportedly hacked today, with numerous disruptions to both Xbox Live and Sony's PlayStation Network. both services have been partially or totally offline all day, with Microsoft's official Twitter campaign chiming in to note that the service had been disrupted and that the company was working to bring it back online -- but didn't have an ETA on when that would happen. A group called Lizard Squad is currently claiming responsibility for the attack on Twitter, which likely involves spamming both networks with huge amounts of data to jam servers and make it impossible to process login requests. The attack was carefully timed to cause a maximum amount of disruption...
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