Your PSN account was hacked earlier today, did you even realise? I woke up to the news that (again) my precious PSN account, of which I pay R59 per month was apparently subjected to a DDos attack. A “radical” group of hackers on twitter named Lizard Squad. A DDos attack, which is more of a minor nuisance than a true hack, is a large amount of requests sent into a server –the Sony PSN server in this case– which overloads it, causing it to fail. Also note that a DDos attack cannot harvest data, so our gaming accounts remain safe.
PSN is down for now, but what was Lizard Squads motive for this slight irritation?
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PSN is down for the moment
Worlds Factory discovered the “reason” for the DDos’ing. Shortly after the attack, Lizard Squad sent out this tweet:
Sony, yet another large company, but they aren't spending the waves of cash they obtain on their customers' PSN service. End the greed.
— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014
PSN used to be a free multiplayer service but one day Sony flipped a switch and disallowed all multiplayer games unless users signed up for PlayStation Plus. Lizard Squad’s attack is based on the “poor” PSN service that we’re paying for. The group didn’t stop there. No, not content with ruining the fun for paid customers, it had to down an airplane as well.
Lizard Squad faked a bomb scare on a plane carrying Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley, forcing the plane to land.
.@AmericanAir We have been receiving reports that @j_smedley's plane #362 from DFW to SAN has explosives on-board, please look into this.
— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014
Look's like @j_smedley's flight is being redirected, we call upon all Lizards to #PrayForFlight362. pic.twitter.com/J9xAZEPSJT
— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 24, 2014
#BREAKING @AmericanAir confirms #Flight362 from DFW diverted due to security threat – 185 people on board – all passengers now deplaned.
— Sandra Turner (@wfaasandra) August 24, 2014
They also took Vatican City offline, says this tweet from a few hours ago. Oddly enough, the Vatican City page is online. Unless they’re referring to the Pope’s twitter account.
Just took Vatican City offline, all kuffar shall die. #ISIS #Jihad #ISIL #IS
— Lizard Squad (@LizardSquad) August 25, 2014
In 2011, a truly devastating hack by Anonymous turned off PSN for 24 days, affecting a reported 77 million users. Hopefully, Sony’s bolstered its services since then, so the servers should be up soonest.
