With increasing online activity comes increasing online vulnerability from hackers. (Photo : Reuters)
A hacker group calling themselves the Phantom Squad recently issued the threat of taking down the Xbox Live and PlayStation Network this Christmas. The hacker group also claimed responsibility of the recent distributed denial of service attack that took down Xbox Live.
Phantom Squad claims that the attacks are part of the group's effort to expose the weak security system of Xbox and PlayStation. The eminent attack has remarkable similarities to the hack launched by the Lizard Squad that took down the PlayStation and Xbox networks in Christmas of 2014. The Lizard Squad attack took down online services that upset thousands of users who received their consoles over the holiday season.
Both the Phantom Squad and Lizard Squad attacks use distributed denial of service (DDos) methods. In this type of attack, huge amount of requests are being sent to a server in order to clog its traffic and ultimately overwhelm it.
Despite showing similarities on their attack strategy, no evidence shows that Phantom Squad and Lizard Squad are related or worked with each other.
In a statement acquired by Independent, Phantom Squad said, "Why do we take down PSN and Xbox Live? Because cyber security does not exist. Some men just want to watch PSN and Xbox Live burn."
Following Phantom Squad's several attacks on Xbox Live system, its own website was apparently taken down by another hacking group. Calling themselves SkidNP, the group claimed to have hacked the website of Phantom Squad. SkidNP posted a screenshot of their attack and left a message threatening to launch attacks on Phantom Squad in case they claim responsibility for the upcoming Christmas attacks, according to Gamer Zone.
