Lizard Squad
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Lizard Squad member pleads guilty to harassing women gamers
The co-called Lizard Squad have established that they're pretty terrible people, but one of the members has hit a sad new low. A 17-year old Canadian has pleaded guilty to 23 separate offenses against mostly young, female gamers, including extortion and criminal harassment, according to the Tri-City News. The teenager (who can't be named because of his age) outed victims' financial information online, placed false orders for services and repeatedly swatted victims, among other crimes. He reportedly targeted most of his victims on Twitter and while playing League of Legends.
Here's the code you need for Sony's 10 percent PSN store discount
Sony took a bit of flack over the Christmas break when its PlayStation Network was hit by a devastating denial-of-service attack. It took a few days for the gaming service to recover from Lizard Squad's assault and, to make up for the festive downtime, Sony is now rewarding its players with a five-day PSN extension and a one-time 10 percent PSN store discount. Today, we've finally got the all-important UK code: T6R3KB529K. It's valid until 9am on January 26th and can be applied to the total value of your PS3 or PS4 basket. There are a few exceptions, however. Sony says the code won't work for video rentals, game pre-orders, PS Plus and Music Unlimited subscriptions -- that's quite a list, but at least you can buy some digital games to tide you over until Evolve's release next month. Oh, and if you live outside of the UK, head to the source below for all of Sony's other codes.
Daily Roundup: Facebook experiments, Lumia updates and more!
Learn how to deal with contentious topics (and friends) on Facebook, get the scoop on the Lumia Denim update for Windows Phone devices and get enlightened about the cheapest smart bulbs around. All this and more can be found in today's Daily Roundup.
UK police arrest man connected to Lizard Squad PlayStation and Xbox attacks
Ever since its Christmas Day attack that took PlayStation and Xbox Live servers down, the "Lizard Squad" has taunted authorities while simultaneously trying to market its takedown-for-hire DDoS service. Police apparently arrested a London-based man affiliated with the group before the turn of the year (although it was over claims of PayPal hacking), but UK authorities have today claimed that they've tracked down at least one member who was involved in the attacks. Officers from the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) Cyber Crime Unit say that they have arrested an 18-year-old man in connection with a "the denial of service attack of Sony Playstation and Xbox systems in 2014 and swatting offences."
Lizard Squad hacker arrested for cyber-fraud
A form of justice may have come to bear on one of the members of Lizard Squad. Today, police in Britain have arrested 22-year-old Vinnie Omari, who has connections to the hacker group, for alleged cyber-fraud. The arrest is unrelated to some of the recent activities of Lizard Squad, which includes shutting down the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live over Christmas, DDoS attacks on Destiny this past September, and a bomb threat made on a plane carrying SOE President John Smedley last August. Omari was sought in connection to PayPal thefts from 2013 to 2014.
Lizard Squad's takedown-for-hire service quickly disappears
One of the oldest sales tactics in the book is using a freebie to get you hooked before slapping you with the bill for the second. That's why the audacious holiday season takedowns of both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live were, apparently, a marketing stunt. Lizard Squad, the group that claimed responsibility for both attacks turned around and launched Lizard Stresser, a service that let anyone fire off a DDoS broadside, so long as they pay a fee. The joke may be on them however, since the tool is already down (the group claims this is so it can switch servers), and while the website was live it even became a target for exploits.
Hackers behind PlayStation Network, Xbox Live disruption reportedly targeting Tor
Lizard Squad, the merry band of hackers that claimed responsibility for taking Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network offline for Christmas, appears to have a new target: Tor. Reports of an attack on the network, which offers online anonymity, appeared earlier today, following a warning on December 19th of "Possible upcoming attempts to disable the Tor network." A Tor spokesperson acknowledged the attacks, but said they were unlikely to have an effect on users' anonymity. "This looks like a regular attempt at a Sybil attack: the attackers have signed up many new relays in hopes of becoming a large fraction of the network. But even though they are running thousands of new relays, their relays currently make up less than 1% of the Tor network by capacity. We are working now to remove these relays from the network before they become a threat, and we don't expect any anonymity or performance effects based on what we've seen so far.
E-thugs target Destiny with DDoS attacks
Destiny has been made the target of a round of DDoS attacks, coming from the same group that previously took credit for executing a similar attack against Sony Online Entertainment and a bomb threat on John Smedley's plane (among other harassment). Players were told that the game was facing issues with logging in and matchmaking across the board, but Bungie declined to elaborate further at the time; the tweet on the matter has since been deleted. Our sister site Joystiq reports that the servers are up again. Hacker group Lizard Squad has taken credit for taking parts of the game offline, an attack which also affected Call of Duty: Ghosts. Congratulations are in order for Destiny, since nothing says you've arrived like people taking down your servers as part of a petty show of power.
