For the past few days, denial of service attacks have limited or brought down the servers powering Sony’s PlayStation Network, Microsoft’s Xbox Live, Riot Games’ League of Legends and Blizzard Entertainment’s Battle.net.
Now Amazon’s new subsidiary Twitch is among the affected sites:
https://twitter.com/TwitchSupport/status/504436809888059392
The group claiming responsibility for the string of attacks is Lizard Squad, which also claims to be affiliated with Middle Eastern jihadist state ISIS. Its attacks are reminiscent of the black hat hacker group LulzSec, which in 2011 issued denial of service attacks against corporate and governmental targets.
Over the weekend, a Lizard Squad attack on the PlayStation Network servers was followed up with a bomb threat against a plane carrying Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley to San Diego. The threat temporarily diverted the plane to Phoenix.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?
Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.
First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.
Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.
That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?
Yes, I'll give $5/month
Yes, I'll give $5/month
We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and
Google Pay. You can also contribute via