Sony Hacks Continue: PlayStation Hit By Lizard Squad Attack

An anonymous reader writes Hacker group Lizard Squad has claimed responsibility for shutting down the PlayStation Network, the second large scale cyber-attack on the Sony system in recent weeks. Although apparently unrelated, the outage comes just weeks after the much larger cyber-attack to the tech giant's film studios, Sony Pictures, which leaked confidential corporate information and unreleased movies.The group claiming to have taken down PSN today, Lizard Squad, first appeared earlier this year with another high-profile distributed denial of service attack on Xbox Live and World of Warcraft in August. The hacker collective claimed that this attack was just a 'small dose' of what was to come over the Christmas period.

Comments

Sony needs to invest in their IT

[danbuter]

Seriously, how can a billion dollar company that does tons of computer stuff not have a near-impregnable website?

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[gstoddart]

Are you kidding?

Laziness and greed, and an indifference to security.

This seems like a recurring thing ... I'm pretty sure Sony has been hacked several times over the last few years.

If security doesn't make you money, and you have no penalty for being incompetent at it ... why spend money on it?

When companies start having penalties for getting hacked and leaking people's information, they might do something. In the mean time, if all they have to say is "oops, sorry" don't expect anything to change.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[ColdWetDog]

Someone set us up the bomb!

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[CodeReign]

Sony doesn't care about their security. Their "Action Cam" comes with a disclaimer saying that the device isn't secure and if you connect it to a wireless network anyone has access to all of its functionality.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Tha_Zanthrax]

That's actually not that bad. Most companies do this, but most don't include a disclaimer. The alternative is to enable the protection from the factory, which probably results in a lot of return from customers who are not able to figure out why their camera doesn't work.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[jones_supa]

When companies start having penalties for getting hacked and leaking people's information, they might do something.

It's also too easy for the attackers to hide in Internet.

What good is it for companies to just build increasingly stronger and more complex security fortresses and still be at the complete mercy of sudden anonymous attacks from unknown directions. That's just crappy design of Internet.

Re: Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow that is hilarious. I have never heard this phrase!

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have been using OpenBSD.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Cley Faye]

There's some middle-ground to find. Sure, there is no 100% foolproof way to secure your network, but if a company get hacked and preliminary investigations shows that this company used debug configurations with outdated software, coupled with bad habits of storing sensitive information in a plaintext, unprotected database, then this company is guilty of something.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Creepy]

They didn't specify the attack, but a DDoS attack (part of this group's MO) is notoriously difficult to counter because it relies on the lack of security of the user community rather than the company itself. They use, say, a half million computer bot network to flood the target servers with requests. While you can theoretically block request flooding, sheer numbers can still overwhelm systems.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Ziggitz]

These companies get hacked all the time. For everyone time you do hear about it they probably get hacked a half dozen times more that you don't hear about it. They have no incentive to publicize their mistakes and unless a regulatory agency is sitting next to each admin and developer there's no way to find out unless they admit it themselves, the perpetrators claim responsibility and show proof, or a third party uncovers it. No data you give to a third party is safe, whatever you give out it's to plan what you would do if it got out rather than trust it to be safe and whether or not it's worth the risk of giving out in the first place.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[number17]

Remember that time when people were told to vote with their wallets?

Seems like people don't know what happened, don't care what happened, or more likely don't know how it can hurt them.

Don't worry though, in 2011, after the last big hack, Sony changed their Terms & Conditions so that you^H^H^H they would have limited damages in the future.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[spire3661]

SO does my Fire TV when i turn on ABD mode.....just saying if someone is on your local network, LOTS of things become very vulnerable. The security for the device is supposed to be YOUR FIREWALL.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[gtall]

You mean when company officers start having penalties for getting hacked and leaking people's information, they might do something. Otherwise, the officers are likely to pass the buck to anyone but themselves. Boards' of directors are also complicit in the low value companies put on their customers' information. Suing the company won't really do it, customers should be able to sue the officers and boards. This fiction that companies are individuals should be taken seriously. They are collective individuals comprised of their officers and boards. They should be held legally responsible.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Tukz]

Most electronics that connect to your wireless network has this vulnerability.
Are you really bashing Sony for warning the users about this fact?

I thought it'd be a good thing to warn the user, so they might secure it themselves.

Re: Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean all your bases are belong to us?

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[drinkypoo]

Most electronics that connect to your wireless network has this vulnerability.
Are you really bashing Sony for warning the users about this fact?

Nope, they're bashing Sony for not securing it. That "most electronics" has the same flaw doesn't excuse them.

I thought it'd be a good thing to warn the user, so they might secure it themselves.

It's a Sony product, so they won't be able to do that. They best they can do is firewall it off.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Anonymous Coward]

What we need is every person, their actions, and their personal information logged and public. Millions of people willingly give out their information to Facebook, and that site has never had one ne'er-do-well uttering so much as an insult toward another. Get rid of anonymity. Then we'll all* be safe.
*For some value of all; FYGM

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[xaotikdesigns]

So you are saying I shouldn't connect it to random coffee shop wifi networks?

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Ravaldy]

If it's a DDoS you can't stop it from the server side. It's not a software issue. Sony alone cannot resolve the issue. I'm no DDoS avoidance guru but I understand enough about it to know it can't be solved at their server level.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Ravaldy]

They are known for high level DDoS attacks so I assume that's what it was.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

1) remember that computers (especially networked ones) are in effect infinite state machines. There are thousands maybe millions of ways of hacking these, and it looks more and more like an inside job. Remember that one of the tradeoffs of protecting against an inside job makes it a P.I.T.A. to get anything done inside.

2) Also remember that current atmosphere for public companies is, hell even if you're lucky, not past the next quarterly report and a good chance no farther than the daily stock price. Security (and privacy) in most firms is (are) viewed as a cost. They're not baked in. Witness the horribly hot mess that is Snapchat

Sony is just a worse than average, but sadly not atypical company when it comes to security. We're still bathing apes from the savannah, and not quite there when it comes to remote presence and the ease of which information can be copied or destroyed at a distance.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, tubes. You need to bring this up with Al Gore. Sony has nothing to do with it.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Dunbal]

People ARE voting with their wallets. Sony is losing money hand over fist, year after year.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[TechyImmigrant]

Seriously, how can a billion dollar company that does tons of computer stuff not have a near-impregnable website?

Big corporations employ people who understand security and they certainly do do some things securely.

However, they do not like the consequences of ensuring security in customer facing things like web sites. Getting in depth security review of each change gets right in the way of making rapid updates. This is understood. It is not just incompetents haphazardly creating security holes with no one paying attention. It is a case that it was decided to favour speed over security.

Sony seems to have failed in protecting things they should have protected, such as employee data. The web site stuff is just a risk they chose to take. Leaving employee data vulnerable is inexcusable.
 

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you should buy American. The Japanese have no ethics.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[gweihir]

Because they are both stupid and greedy. Sony is not the only well-known company where any halfway competent attacker can just walk in. Most companies do not get attacked, because nobody with the required skills cares enough to do it.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Anonymous Coward]

Because security never returns positive profit.
You never see the damage prevented by security, nor is strong security ever a guarantee against damage.

In a world of shareholder run profit-driven companies, security is a race to the bottom. Who can get the most done with the least amount of effort. It becomes a rubic of how much a breach will cost versus, how much it will cost to implement security.

Not to mention in the security triangle, you sacrifice EITHER MONEY or EASE OF USE to get perfect security. YOU can never have a secure, cheap and easy to use system. Either it will be prohibitively expensive, and secure, or the system will be expensive and easy to use. You can't have all three. It's just not feesible.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[crypticedge]

They weren't hacked as much as someone parked on the bridge and claimed to have blown it up. A DDOS attack is not a hack, it's just drowning out other communications.

This is the same as someone going into a large room with a megaphone and yelling, then claiming they killed everyone in the room despite everyone still being very much alive.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[crypticedge]

They weren't hacked. They were ddos'ed. This was not a hack. Bad title, bad summary.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[gweihir]

They were hacked a few days ago. I was referring to that. But DDoS resilience is part of any sane IT security strategy.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[0xdeaddead]

The first major hack to SONY came two weeks after they laid off their security people. what a coincidence. And this malware was targeted... It doesn't take much to see that it's been a long running inside job from people who were once SONY security people.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Guppy06]

Well, someone played a Sony music CD on the web server, and...

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Xest]

To be fair this latest attack was just a DDOS, only so much you can do about that.

Lizard Squad aren't real hackers like whoever carried out the first attack. Lizard Squad are just a bunch of DDOS kiddies without any real actual skills.

You're right all the same of course, but there's only so much Sony can do about the DDOS attacks- they've just been timed to conflate it with Sony's genuine security breaches, Lizard Squad are basically trying to look cool by leeching off the success of whoever did the real hack even though they don't have anything like the talent to do a similar thing themselves.

Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly, but I think there was an incident when 4chan tried to DDoS Amazon. They gave up quickly because Amazon's service had a scaling algorithm that took the increased traffic like it was nothing (and that it was also a fraction of the traffic that Amazon sees during the Christmas season).

Lizard Squad?

[Viol8]

MIght as well just call it "We're 16, still live with our parents, have no life away from the computer and play too much WoW Group"

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

*too much Second Life

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sad how childish and amateurish these attacks have been. Even the latest GoP threat message was written in some shitty English.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[mcgrew]

These kids have my thanks, as does North Korea. Sony hacked my computer with the XCP trojan they loaded on a music CD my daughter bought at the record store she worked at. So any time Sony is hacked, I cheer and hope the attackers do a lot of expensive damage.

Yes, over ten years ago and I'm still enraged over it. Someone should have gone to prison for that.

Fuck that evil God damned Sony and the ass it rode in on, the fucking bastards. DIE, SONY, DIE!!!

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Kythe]

True - there is some karma at work here, I think. Of course, this doesn't just hurt Sony.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aha! See, Sony caught you, you damn pirate. Putting your daughter's music CD into your computer. This type of behavior is exactly what that Sony trojan was designed to stop. Indiscriminate sharing of media has to be stopped!

OK, you know that was a joke, right? That Sony trojan was truly evil.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

YMMV, but i also was living with my parents at 16. Now (19) not anymore.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[oodaloop]

MIght as well just call it "We're 16, still live with our parents

Well, not everyone was running their own company at 17 like you.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sad how childish and amateurish these attacks have been. Even the latest GoP threat message was written in some shitty English.

It's sad that childish amateurs successfully can do this to companies that are supposed to work with technology.
Being hacked is bad enough. Being hacked by someone that appears to be incompetent? It doesn't look good at all.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[stealth_finger]

Fuck that evil God damned Sony and the ass it rode in on, the fucking bastards. DIE, SONY, DIE!!!

Yeah, it was out of order but seriously, chill the fuck out, I'd hate to see how you get if anyone actually does anything to you. I bet you're the kind to chase some little old lady 10 miles screaming bloody murder because she cut you off on the motorway,

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

The rootkit scandal has been dealt with a long time ago already.

It was not dealt with. The perpetrators were known, but no one was sent to prison.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

That Sony trojan was truly evil.

Yes, but they managed to top it by including it on their USB-sticks after they had been told by the court that it was illegal.
Didn't get more than a slap on the wrist.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I meant that it has been dealt with as far as it ever will be. No one is going to prison anymore, nor is there any reason for anybody to hold a grudge with what happened then, which is a decade ago.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be jealous of their skills. I bet you probably couldn't even hack your toaster.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yes and no. This doesn't really appear to be a hack - just it going off line. Which implies strongly to me (as no one has come forward saying lawl we have a database of all your details) that this is just a DDoS.

There's very little a company can do to defend against a DDoS run by script kiddies abusing a large bot net.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[MrL0G1C]

I think removing the other-OS functionality from the PS3 was far worse and a large part of the reason hackers like to target Sony.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[drinkypoo]

No one is going to prison anymore, nor is there any reason for anybody to hold a grudge with what happened then, which is a decade ago.

Of course there is a reason. They got away with it, so they'll do it again. That's reason enough to wish for something to happen to someone, so help reduce the recurrence of such events. Sony continues to abuse users because they can, and advertising still makes people buy shit they don't want or need, so they should be held accountable.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously saying that Sony should be held under threat for that rootkit thing to the end of world, because you believe there is some kind of constant risk of them doing it again?

Re:Lizard Squad?

[drinkypoo]

Are you seriously saying that Sony should be held under threat for that rootkit thing to the end of world, because you believe there is some kind of constant risk of them doing it again?

Until someone is actually punished for it? Yes. Yes I am. Why should corporations be permitted to break the law and get away with it, and then go on to do it again? That is, after all, the pattern. Ignore the lessons of history at the usual peril.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[cayenne8]

Of course there is a reason. They got away with it, so they'll do it again.

Kinda like rioters and looters we've seen recently, and those inciting a riot.

They get away with it...lather, rinse, repeat.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

WOOOT neckbeard spotted. Lizard Squad member confirmed!

Re:Lizard Squad?

[HiThere]

"Someone"? Sorry, but that's unacceptably vague. Try responsible parties, including management, and I'll agree with you. Scapegoats don't do a thing for me.

OTOH, I'd also be satisfied if the corporation was just put out of business.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[lgw]

Sony's CEO resigned over the rootkit thing, and the DoJ basically told them that if it happened again, there would be no Sony in America. That's what powerful incentives look like! Sony took that quite seriously.

DoJ found that it wasn't the case that Sony execs set out to break the law here, but added that if this sort of thing happened again, they'd assume it was intentional.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[HiThere]

Doesn't hacking your toaster require skills with BSD? That's the only OS *I've* ever seen running on a toaster. (Don't remember the year, but it was at the West Coast Computer Faire.)

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure.

Just like Belkin should be for their session-hijacking routers.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Man On Pink Corner]

What in the world are you talking about? If Sony's CEO resigned, it certainly wasn't over the rootkit. In fact, the executive at BMG responsible for the rootkit was promoted by Sony to President of Corporate Development and New Businesses, and later given a seat on the board at Bertelsmann.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what your post translates to:
Excuse me Mr. Sony, I'm an AC and you raped me and gaped my ass 10 years ago; but now I've forgiven you because you were slapped on the wrist with a feather. Here's my nice fresh and tight ass...can you rape and gape it again, please?

Re:Lizard Squad?

[crypticedge]

Denial of service is as much of a hack as unplugging your PC is. Sorry, but no hack, just children. Most people grown out of the anarchy phase of their life when their balls drop. It seems these manchildren haven't yet. Maybe if they put themselves to doing something productive and stopped living in their mothers basement they may stop being so angry.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[lgw]

The DoJ hit Sony with a fine large enough to make Sony miss its earnings significantly for the year, which lead tot the CEO leaving. There is a criminal justice system for corporations: gross negligence awards, and other eye-watering fines.

But of course, Sony is an example of problems with Japanese corporate culture and legal system more than our own. I do wonder whether the DoJ would have been so aggressive if a US company had done that.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the people who had real uses for OtherOS, the DDOSing script kiddy types were just butthurt that it made piracy harder.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[spongman]

wait, you weren't living at home with your parents when you were 16?

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try writing a serious threat in korean or russian and see how well you fare.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[Man On Pink Corner]

The DoJ hit Sony with a fine large enough to make Sony miss its earnings significantly for the year, which lead to the CEO leaving

I can't find any other references or details about this at all. Do you have any links to more info?

Wikipedia says only that "The US Department of Justice (DOJ) made no comment on whether it would take any criminal action against Sony." They did apparently have to pay the State of Texas $750K, which at Sony's scale is about the same magnitude as a parking ticket.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[drinkypoo]

Kinda like rioters and looters we've seen recently, and those inciting a riot.

You mean Wall Street? Yeah, I'm sick of them looting our economy, too. That makes me want to riot, so it must be incitement.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[mcgrew]

Sony's sins go far beyond XCP and OtherOS.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[mcgrew]

Sony is hardly a "little old lady" and ruining someone's computer is hardly "cutting someone off"; it's a felony that should have been prosecuted, but wasn't. The guy who burglarized my house a couple of years ago is lucky the cops caught him before I did.

If Sony had repaid me for the damage and apologized I would forgive them, but if you want something from me you have to ASK. They didn't.

Again, fuck Sony, I wouldn't feel sorry for the asshole who broke into my house if someone broke into his. And I don't feel sorry for Sony.

Re:Lizard Squad?

[mcgrew]

Who else is hurt by it? Their stockholders? They OWN Sony. The employees? They ARE Sony. Playstation owners? Serves them right for buying Sony equipment.

There are no innocents here.

LS

[Kythe]

Isn't this the same group/person that called in a fake bomb threat on an airplane not too long ago? I'm surprised they're still walking free.

Re:LS

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Isn't this the same group/person that called in a fake bomb threat on an airplane not too long ago? I'm surprised they're still walking free.

Yes. I think it's reasonable to conclude that they are located outside of the USA or any country friendly to it and thus can't be brought to justice. However, based on what I've seen on some published court reports, the wheels of justice turn really slowly on criminal activities over computers even when the perps live in the USA, so there is also a chance that the US government actually knows who they are and can get to them but is just taking its time to do so.

Re:LS

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes well over a year to have any action on these things.

Re:LS

[The Grim Reefer]

Yes. I think it's reasonable to conclude that they are located outside of the USA or any country friendly to it and thus can't be brought to justice.

I suppose it depends on the country. If they don't have a significant military, death by drone strike seems to count as justice these days.

Re:LS

[Anonymous Coward]

"Taking their time to do so" = building a case and collecting lots of evidence. Some Anons got squashed in the US and England, using this slow and quiet method. If LS is anywhere in the "friendly 1st world country" club, they'll go down the same way, or at least a few of them will.

If there's anything these dumbass script kiddies need to realize, it's that tinkering with the government and big corporations will get you nailed. They'll invent huge potential losses, wreck your family, and throw your pimple popping ass behind bars. If you want cheap thrills, go stand on the railroad tracks.

Re:LS

[crypticedge]

There's another option, if they're actually good at it, and that's the government will offer them a job (with the condition you'll sit in a cell for decades if you don't take it)

They don't do that for script kiddies like LS though, those people just get jailed and forgotten forever.

Fuckers

[nickberry]

What the fuck is the point of this? Bunch of punks with too much time on their hands....

Re:Fuckers

[gstoddart]

I'm torn ... on the one hand, yeah, childish vandals.

On the other hand, if Sony is not going to care about their security, they deserve this.

Way too many companies just simply don't seem to care. Maybe what Sony needs is to have their noses rubbed in it, and then the might actually put some effort in it.

This complete indifference to security is just stupid.

Re:Fuckers

[gweihir]

If attacking is too easy, even semi-competent cretins like these can get in. Hence the need for a company like Sony to spend some tiny fraction of their income on security. Apparently, they are far too greedy and stupid for that.

Re:Fuckers

[Xest]

These cretins aren't getting in, they're just DDOSing. The other folks got in, but they weren't cretins and clearly knew what the fuck they were doing.

Which doesn't excuse Sony's apparent poor security, but you should be technically competent enough to know that a DDOS isn't the same as an intrusion and there's far less you can do about a DDOS than an intrusion.

"Sorry little ingrates."

[Crypto Cavedweller]

Isn't that what Zed called them in M.I.B.? The Internet's version of little kids throwing rocks at the neighbors' windows.

Hara Kiri

[Anonymous Coward]

What I don't understand is that Sony is headquartered in Japan. JAPAN. Their work ethic and honor against disgrace is known the world over even today.

You'd think they would be able to put security over profit. And you'd think someone would have to commit seppuku over this already. I expect to open the news and at least a dozen pinkies got clipped or something. Christ.

Re:Hara Kiri

[ArcadeMan]

Maybe the Japanese are more like Romulans or Ferengi than Klingons after all.

Re:Hara Kiri

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe your weird racist worldview isn't accurate? They would commit ritual suicide because of shitty software, wtf? Japanese software has always been shitty.

Re:Hara Kiri

[gtall]

Honor my ass. Their notion of honor is to not look bad, not being bad has nothing to do with it.

Re:Hara Kiri

[blackomegax]

Lol. Klingons were more or less modeled on old japanese society. Ferengi obviously american. And our society has infected their society to completeness..so..yeah. Pretty sure Romulans were supposed to be a Russia analog. (And cardassians an obvious US NSA/CIA extremism analog)

Re:Hara Kiri

[ArcadeMan]

So I guess that makes the Federation itself Canadian, eh?

Re:Hara Kiri

[cyberchondriac]

Ferengi "obviously" American? They seemed to me to be a unabashed stereotype of the jew, as depicted in European culture like "The Merchant of Venice".

Re:Hara Kiri

[cyberchondriac]

I kind of pictured them like this: Klingons, a mix of Mongolian, Viking, and ancient Japanese: Romulans are clearly based on ancient Roman civilization, they even use the same terminology. Ferengi... they're basically an ethnic slur on jews. It's interesting how Jar Jar Binks offended everyone but no batted an eye with the Ferengi. Cardassians, maybe USSR..? not sure who they remind me of.

Re:Hara Kiri

[Austerity Empowers]

but...but...we clothe our women

Re:Hara Kiri

[Anonymous Coward]

All true. They're money grubbing weasels that will cut you off at the shins, all for that cold pressed latinum. Also they like whores. The Ferengi that is.

Re:Hara Kiri

[Anonymous Coward]

Original series klingons were a sockpupet stand-in for the USSR, and the Romulans were modeled after the Roman Empire (At least everything was named after Rome their actual politics didn't come up).

The Next Generation added a "Space Vikings" layer to the klingons, and "habitual backstabbers" to the Romulans. The Fenangi were basicly Libertarians but more precisely were the "anti-federation" as they were the degenerate Capitalist counter to the post scarcity communist utopia that was the Federation with comprable levels of sucess at the "national" level, but visually modeling them after golblins (as in goblin markets and the old school "sell your first born child" style of fairietales) backfired and they became the comic relief species.

Deep Space 9 expanded the Ferangi further and made them both more of a comic relief species and less of an "anti-federation" but left them with their Libertarian roots.

Re:Hara Kiri

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Original Series, the Klingons were the Soviet analog (many cold-war references) and the Romulans represented Red China.

A lot has changed since then.

Re:Hara Kiri

[gweihir]

That is not honor. That is reputation.

Re:Hara Kiri

[ArcadeMan]

Of course you do. That's 50% more customers for the clothing industry.

For a Hostage Economy to work,

[Anonymous Coward]

You first need to kill a victim. Preferably publicly, brutally, and on tape.

Since when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is a DDOS a hack?

Re:Since when...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what I was wondering. These guys take Steam, WoW, XBL, and PSN down all the time. They aren't hackers, they are kids that know how to ping.

Re:Since when...

[ArcadeMan]

Since shut up we need clickbait headlines, that's when.

Re:Since when...

[Austerity Empowers]

Calling it a hack is like listing the body count on a mass shooting, it makes great headlines and guarantees repeat business.

Re:Since when...

[sound vision]

While it's possible that the attackers might have purchased hundreds or thousands of VPSes, or convinced as many internet users to willingly participate in the attack... most likely the attack made using a botnet which does require a bit of hacking to set up. Maybe the botnet was bought or leased from the actual hackers by the people who did the Playstation attack. So you could make the case that the "attackers" aren't "hackers", but they still needed to work with hackers to launch this successfully.

Re:Since when...

[Xest]

It's not but that's what Lizard Squad are counting on. Lizard Squad are just a bunch of DDOS script kiddies and nothing more. They're trying to look cooler than they are by piggy backing off the success of the actual hack on Sony the other day by pretending they're somehow continuing Sony's "security woes". They're not. They're just doing what anyone with enough dollars to hire a botnet for a few hours could do.

It's still the hack from the other day that should be in the news as that was a big deal carried out by people with actual skill. This? this is just a bunch of clueless kids attention whoring.

Re:Did they use OpenBSD?

[rodrigoandrade]

Yes, which was loaded through OtherOS.

a fucking waste

[Tmann72]

The sick sad part of this is that they think they are fighting the corporate power or something, but in reality all they will be doing is ruining Christmas vacation for many gamers everywhere.

Re:a fucking waste

[Anonymous Coward]

What gamers? Gamers are dead, haven't you heard?

Re:a fucking waste

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, if your vacations are ruined by a video game outage you really need to get more sun.

Re: a fucking waste

[mechanicaladvantage]

There's no sun here. None I can get this time of year without serious frostbite, anyways. That being said, I agree with the idea behind the words, that this should be an annoyance at most, and if it goes beyond that a serious reevaluation of priorities is in order.

Re:a fucking waste

[GTRacer]

Tell me about it... Patch 2.4.5 is supposed to drop late tonight for Final Fantasy 14, and I'm going to be very disappointed if I can't connect and download it. *Zorg* disappointed...

Re:a fucking waste

[Jahoda]

Heavens to betsy! A Christmas with no video games? Those poor suffering children!

Re:a fucking waste

[Ravaldy]

I don't disagree with your comment but it is slightly ignorant. Gaming is not any different than hobbies such as puzzle making or board games. People do whatever makes them happy when spending time inside. That's not to say they won't go out and make a snow man, play hockey or go skiing. But once the evening settles there's nothing better than a 2 hours playing online games with friends.

Re:a fucking waste

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know which is more disappointing, that a horrible MMO like Final Fantasy 14 is still getting updates, or that somehow Square Enix has managed to design a PC MMO that needs PSN to function.

Re:a fucking waste

[Calydor]

FF14 has actually gotten a lot better after the revamp, and it's on PC, PS3 and PS4 - which means odds are decent that the OP plays the PSN version instead of the PC version.

Re:a fucking waste

[Austerity Empowers]

Not dead yet....getting better.

Re:a fucking waste

[GTRacer]

Just because I have a miqo'te-like curiosity: What's so awful about it? We're talking about the relaunch right? Not 1.0?

Also, it keeps getting updates because people keep paying the sub fee.

Re:a fucking waste

[Tmann72]

Get over yourself. People get off for the holidays and they want to enjoy them. This is a prime way people enjoy there break when they might be completely snowed in or it's too shitty outside. The fact that you look down on video games doesn't change the fact that this attack does nothing but punish innocent users who simply want to relax and play their systems.

Re:a fucking waste

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently? It's Yet Another Generic WoW Clone. WoW just released a new expansion. Go play that if you want to play a good MMO, one that doesn't require Sony's servers to be up.

The remake manages to be a worse game than the original. They ripped out everything interesting and original to turn it into Yet Another Generic WoW Clone. There are far more interesting MMOs out there that don't just ape WoW. But I guess the siren call of anime catgirl tits is enough to pull in the weeaboos to keep a shitty MMO alive.

Re:a fucking waste

[Jahoda]

Oh, I need to get over *myself*, eh? LOL. I assure you that my Steam Library is _comprehensive_, and I also know that if I can't get online, the world doesn't end. Read a book. "punish innocent users". Oh the feels!

Re: a fucking waste

[RivenAleem]

Dunno, some of us work a lot and have very little down time throughout the year. There's nothing wrong with looking forward to 2 weeks of uninterrupted gaming. Especially if they are going to disrupt social (online) gaming between friends. For many of us there's little/no distinction between having friends over to visit, and playing an MMO with friends on Ventrilo/Steam/Skype.

Even some people who are around people day in / day out might just like the quiet time playing a single player (always online...) game.

What if they disrupted the TV broadcast? Imagine some families who'd actually have to talk to eachother!?

Re:a fucking waste

[drinkypoo]

The sick sad part of this is that they think they are fighting the corporate power or something, but in reality all they will be doing is ruining Christmas vacation for many gamers everywhere.

Stop giving your money to Sony. It has been conclusively proven that they will not protect the interests that you've demonstrated by giving them money. Then you won't have your Christmas vacation "ruined" because you couldn't avoid your loved ones with a video game.

Re:a fucking waste

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just the worst kind of person. You don't give a flying fuck about people who are affected who didn't do a thing to deserve it, and then you actually talk down to the victims. What a fuck head.

Re:a fucking waste

[Tmann72]

Only users on the playstations require Sony's servers to be up since you have to log in to PSN to get online. If you play on the PC you don't need PSN what-so-ever. So no FFXIV is not reliant on Sony.

Re:a fucking waste

[Tmann72]

I don't have a ps4. So thanks for the assumptions. I was simply pointing out that others will have their vacations inadvertently affected due to these actions due to no actions of their own. So thanks for making your tone into some attack against me when this situation won't even affect me. GG. I'm allowed to have concern for others without having a personal stake in the matter.

Targets

[stealth_finger]

Seriously, target the companies and not the users. As I understand it (I don't) all you really need for a ddos is a massive botnet to flood connection requests. Do something proper, hack the system to make psn/xbla free for everyone and make all downloadable games free, auto change everyones backgrounds to goatse, or hack the Gibson or something that's not going to annoy a big bunch of people who aren't your target.

Re:Targets

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just it. Lizards target is the users. They are a group of trolls, and fine joy in this. They don't care about the companies, they are just kids out to ruin peoples days.

Re:Targets

[ledow]

The problem is that that stuff is actually hard.

Aiming a botnet (paid-for or otherwise) at a company can be a single-click affair if you go to the right places on the Internet.

Stealing code from a virus that's managed - accidentally - to get into Sony is not hard either.

However, making a targeted attack, into the secure areas, not getting caught? That's difficult even in the most lax of scenarios, precisely because more attention is paid to it.

Re:Targets

[xaotikdesigns]

That would require talent.

Re:Targets

[drinkypoo]

Seriously, target the companies and not the users.

You can't destroy Sony without stopping people from giving them money. If your goal is to destroy Sony, your only option is to attack their cash flow. Making the system unavailable during high demand periods is a way to decrease customer confidence and the likelihood that they will give their disposable income to Sony.

Yes, they're assholes, but what they are doing does male sense, and suggesting otherwise is ignorant.

Re:Targets

[stealth_finger]

Seriously, target the companies and not the users.

You can't destroy Sony without stopping people from giving them money. If your goal is to destroy Sony, your only option is to attack their cash flow. Making the system unavailable during high demand periods is a way to decrease customer confidence and the likelihood that they will give their disposable income to Sony.

Yes, they're assholes, but what they are doing does male sense, and suggesting otherwise is ignorant.

Yeah, it makes sense in a way, but running a ddos is the most basic, least imaginative thing you can do and annoys the customers much more than the company, and turns potential supporters of your cause against you. At this point sony have lost nothing other than a tiny consumer confidence (of which they had fuck all to begin with anyway). They will probably sell the exact same amount of playstations and the people who were unable to buy games off psn will just do it when it's back up. These lizard kids really need to look at what gop did to learn how to fuck a company properly. PSN would probably be a major casualty of a proper hack but when you just ddos it and it alone then that's just weak, only if they managed to keep it up for weeks or more would it have some kind of impact. I don't know the details but did they target any other part of sony infrastructure? My guess would be no, these kids probably barely realise sony do more than playstation and a couple cameras and for all intents and purposes might as well be a bunch of different companies with the same first name.

In an alternative reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine how "Lizard Squad" could be the name of a cool video game company...instead they chose the role of losers and became destroyers instead of creators. :(

Commas aren't quotation marks

[Anonymous Coward]

samzenpus.

Some things never change

[Thud457]

Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I gave up on Sony Playstation when

[Anonymous Coward]

I gave up on Sony Playstation when the firmware upgrade stopped me from running Linux on it.

Oh get over it

[Viol8]

It was 10 years ago. Lots of large companies do lots of suspect things and you never hear about it. You might think its karma for Sony getting hacked but what about all the innocent people who get hurt too? Or is that ok because they're just "collateral damage"? If thats the case then I suggest you get down off your high horse because the moral highground its standing on is quicksand.

Re:Oh get over it

[HiThere]

Why should I forgive them just because they are large companies?

I'm sorry, but that makes no sense to me. I can't do much, as I restrict myself to legal protests, but if someone else wishes to take the chance of doing more, I'm not going to condemn them.

Anyone who supports Sony is less than innocent. Anyone who actively supports them is an accomplice (presumably) after the fact. That the law won't punish them does not exonerate them. For that matter, my ideas of justice are not based on laws that are not level across the field.

FWIW, I've been mad at Sony ever since they supported the Sony-Bono copyright extension bill, and don't expect to change my mind soon. I'm also angry with many other media companies, but Sony stands out as a repetitive offender.

Re: Oh get over it

[Anonymous Coward]

You realise it is called the Sonny Bono copyright extension act, yes? It is not named after Sony.

Re:Oh get over it

[Viol8]

Do yourself a favour and grow TF up.

Re:Oh get over it

[mcgrew]

It was 10 years ago.

So what? They have shown no indication that they will become less evil. Why would you buy computer equipment from a company willing to hack its customers?

Lots of large companies do lots of suspect things and you never hear about it.

I'll know about it if I'm one of their victims. And, so it's "well, everybody else shoplifts and teases nerds, why shouldn't I?" Just because someone else is being evil gives you no right to be evil as well.

You might think its karma for Sony getting hacked but what about all the innocent people who get hurt too?

I don't believe in karma, and I was one of the innocent people Sony's hacking hurt. If Sony's stockholders get hurt, GOOD. Owning Sony stock is evil. Their employees? What is a company, but its employees? Would you work for the Cosa Nostra just because they were hiring? Then why would you take a position with them?

Hacking Sony harms no innocents. If you work for them, you're part of the problem. If you own stock you're the biggest part of the problem.

Why are defending evil? Are you a Sony employee?

Re: Oh get over it

[HiThere]

Yes, and I'm not pleased with Cher, either. At the time Sony wasn't a media company, but they merged with, and were taken over by the management of, one of the lobbiests sponsoring the bill.

Re:Oh get over it

[HiThere]

So you believe that to forget history is to grow up?

If not, then I don't understand the premise of your assertion.

Sony needs to invest in their IT

[Anonymous Coward]

No they don't. I love hearing news about them getting hacked. Fuck that company.

ddos =/= hacking

[Anonymous Coward]

Ddos is not hacking.....

This makes me wonder how long it can last...

[netsavior]

In an "interconnected" world there is no such thing as "secure" only "more secure" or "less secure"

How long can a private company be on "everyone's radar" before they can no longer do business? This may not be successful, but eventually there will be cases of large corporations basically unable to do business because a relative few can wield a lot of "digital power" over a company with a large presence.

I am not going to overstate the power of "hacktivists"/DDOS/Botnet but suppose these actions continue, how much will it cost Sony to combat this kind of thing? $1,000,000 for every dollar spent hacking them? It seems like there is a limit.

If enough people want a corporation wiped from the internet, there doesn't really seem like a practical way to survive. Not fearmongering, or cheering against Sony specifically... just wondering.

Re:This makes me wonder how long it can last...

[Anonymous Coward]

there is no such thing as "secure" only "more secure" or "less secure"

IFYPFY

Lizard Squad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I TOTALLY AGREE!

XBOX Live

[iONiUM]

Here is their twitter: Lizard Patrol.

They have been attacking XBOX Live randomly for the last 3 weeks which takes down everyone's (including mine) Netflix, games, etc. It's pretty annoying. They even re-tweeted the ankle bracelet on one of their members who is under house arrest after being released from jail. I don't know how they can get away with the blatant DDoS attacks.

Re:XBOX Live

[Anonymous Coward]

It's rather clever, really. They're taking the "circus" out of the "bread and circus". Just a few more attacks on major entertainment sites and maybe some TV stations, and we're good. Post some fake news articles to whip up mass panic hoarding of key commodities, and there wont be any "bread" left either.

Now we can get a long overdue revolution going. Should be interesting!

Re:XBOX Live

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmm. Use a PC or something to get your Netflix fix, mate.

Re:XBOX Live

[sound vision]

Ditto. I don't use an Xbox for movies, TVs, or gaming, and I was 0% affected by these attacks, didn't even know they were going on. This isn't by chance either. I have arranged my media consumption habits to be DRM-free, not reliant on third-party authentication servers running, and stored locally on my own hardware when possible.

Re:XBOX Live

[Xest]

Sucks to be you then, I mean, 1 night of not being able to use a service doesn't seem to be an adequate reason to live in the dark ages of not being able to access media archives far larger than you'll ever afford or be able to store at home and offline.

Re:XBOX Live

[sound vision]

Between non-Hollywood entertainment and the occasional torrent, I've been doing fine.

F&*# Sony and F$&# Lizard Squad

[finalcutmonstar]

Look, I understand Sony is paying the price for its own incompetence and failing to learn from what happened in 2011 to the Playstation Network. That being said, Lizard Squad does not have the right to exploit the network at the expense of the user.

Let's blame the victim

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure Sony could probably boost their IT expenditures to improve their security.

But the people doing the hacking are the criminals. Aren't there supposed to be police forces to stop criminals? Isn't there supposed to be a society that teaches some sort of morals that make people pause before committing criminal acts? Why should Sony bear the burden?

Hax1n teh s0ny, hax1n teh s0ny, total h4x m4n

[Anonymous Coward]

My, isn't that interesting. The smurfs are at it again. Smurfing.

Sony hack is a False Flag operation.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government wants to install backdoors and spying software on our games systems and this is the kind of thing they will do to get it.

Re: Perfect Example Of Why Slashdot Is Dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk about a fanboy.

Re:Perfect Example Of Why Slashdot Is Dead

[drinkypoo]

Just look at this dumb angry clown's post history and you'll see exactly why Slashdot is dead.

Sorry, we can't see it, you didn't log in so we don't know who you are.

A dimwitted and bitter Xbox fanboy still crying over Sony beating the shit out of his precious piece of shit Xbox over the past fourteen years going on a posting rampage over some script kiddies lame DDOS.

Just a week or two ago I deleted my Microsoft account, because the last thing I was using it for was XBL. Their site was failing on all browsers (including Aieeee!) to the extent that I could not deal with terminating my subscription, there was nowhere to get a phone number, the chat support link didn't work. So I'm selling my Xbox 360. Want to buy it?

What is sad is there actually use to be actual smart people here on Slashdot. Now no one is left except dumb angry trolls like drinkypoo.

What is sad is that you're biting the hand that's feeding you. I'm helping to keep this place alive, at least based on my moderation history.

If it makes you feel any better, I dislike Sony and Microsoft about equally. I was going to buy a PS3, but I was doing it for GTAV and Kmart didn't have it in for the PS3. So I bought a used 360 instead. That was my last gaming console purchase, and it looks like it's going to be my last gaming console purchase. Sony and Microsoft can both go piss up a rope, and I'm not even thinking about a Wii U because there's not enough games I care about.

Now you have been educated. I don't imagine it will stop you from coughing up bullshit in the future, however, any more than you've avoided it in the past, coward.

Hey Lizard Squad!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're so l33t and in it to damage Sony, not for financial greed, get us repo dumps of all of Sony's old and shuttered MMOs :)

I'm sure there's more than a few people who'd cheer the liberation of various old games Sony has ruined, assuming they are still on the network. And if not I'm sure they've got consolation prizes that are network accessable.

More like LAME squad

[Anonymous Coward]

Lizard Squad continues to make the least menacing threats ever.

fuck'em

[TallahassZ]

fuck these hacker assholes going after game platforms services - go after the US government!

Stop fc#$ with the PSN network please.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I cant play Battlefield I am going to be one pi$$ed of SOB........unFck yourself........ !!! that is all. !!