New DDoS Threat Faces PlayStation Network and Xbox Live This Christmas

Meanwhile, Wii U can't even get attention from "hackers."

Dan Van Winkle

Published: Dec 16, 2015 10:15 am

This article is over 9 years old and may contain outdated information

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Last year, both Sony’s PlayStation Network and Microsoft’s Xbox Live were taken down on Christmas by a DDoS Attack—that is, a coordinated barrage of falsified incoming traffic on their servers. On a day when so many people will be opening brand new systems and trying to get online, that’s a huge problem, and now another group has threatened to make this year an equally blue Christmas.

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

“The Phantom Squad”—which appears to bear no relation The Lizard Squad, the group responsible for last year’s attack, other than being petulant jerkwads who take down gaming networks for fun—has already recently claimed responsibility for other, smaller scale outages of Xbox Live and Reddit.

Reddit #Offline Goodnight.

— Phantom Squad (@PhantomSqaud) December 15, 2015

Xbox Live #Offline

— Phantom Squad (@PhantomSqaud) December 12, 2015

The purpose of this copycat Christmas attack? Why to make a point about cyber security, of course!

I get asked a lot on why we do this? Why do we take down PSN and Xbox Live? Because cyber security does not exist.

— Phantom Squad (@PhantomSqaud) December 13, 2015

Yeah! Show our corporate overlords how fast and loose they’re playing it with cyber security! What’s that? No, why would we do something that actually demonstrates how vulnerable our data is or anything? Let’s just crash video game networks at the worst possible time with the lowest common denominator of cyber attacks! That’ll show that we’re so smart about cyber security, and they’re so dumb! yeah!

Sigh.

Hopefully, Sony and Microsoft have learned from last year and done something to prevent this kind of attack. On the other hand, you might want to plug in that shiny new Xbox One or PlayStation 4 you bought for that special someone, download the latest updates, and make sure all the games are set up and ready to go before Christmas day. Just in case.

(via GameZone, image via Sony)

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Author

Dan Van Winkle

Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.