FBI Allegedly Investigating Lizard Squad Member Over Xbox Live, PSN Attacks

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FBI Allegedly Investigating Lizard Squad Member Over Xbox Live, PSN Attacks

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 29, 2014 @04:08AM from the who's-to-blame dept.

blottsie writes The FBI is actively investigating a member of the hacker collective that claimed responsibility for recent high-profile cyberattacks on Microsoft and Sony properties, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation and the attacks. A member of the Lizard Squad hacking group, who goes by the alias "ryanc" or Ryan, allegedly garnered the attention of a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation after speaking with the media about Lizard Squad's Christmas-day attacks on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network.

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Hacker Group? by CimmerianX · 2014-12-29 04:12 · Score: 5, Informative

You mean "script kiddies" who are desperate for attention.
1. Re:Hacker Group? by Megane · 2014-12-29 04:24 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  after speaking with the media
  Yep. You can have all the kiddie fun you want, but when you say LOOK AT ME! don't be surprised when you get looked at by the feds.
  
  --
  #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
2. Re:Hacker Group? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-29 04:51 · Score: 1
  
  The Feds could care less
  Why do people say this, it makes no logical sense whatsoever. Are you trying to say they do actually care?
  If you meant to imply they don't care, then they COULDN'T care less.
3. Re:Hacker Group? by Himmy32 · 2014-12-29 05:05 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Nearly everyone is vulnerable to DDoS attacks, as long as your attacker has more bandwidth than you do. They've done nobody any favors.
4. Re:Hacker Group? by MPBoulton · 2014-12-29 05:15 · Score: 1
  
  If a company like Sony is this vulnerable to script kiddies, I want to know about it. Just imagine what professionals could do? The Lizard Squad has done us a favor.
  Agreed - Sony / Microsoft clearly wouldn't have done anything to plug these vulnerabilities themselves without the actions of these guys. Working in IT at Sony must be a really depressing place to be right now...
5. Re:Hacker Group? by DaHat · 2014-12-29 05:28 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Lizard Squad != GOP... or do you have additional information?
  
  --
  Help Brendan pay off his student loans
6. Re:Hacker Group? by Opportunist · 2014-12-29 05:48 · Score: 2
  
  There is a difference between a hack and a DDoS. A hack is breaking into your home. A DDoS is dumping a truckload of sand in front of your entrance. One requires knowledge, skill and tools, and knowing how to use them. The other requires a truck. And maybe the ability to drive stick.
  Also, we're not talking about Sony HQ. We're talking about a Sony service. A service that is already paid for and that users have to pay for whether they can actually use it or not. You may draw your own conclusions, especially concerning how much of a fuck Sony gives about this being available or not.
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
7. Re:Hacker Group? by marsu_k · 2014-12-29 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  Indeed<voice>.
8. Re:Hacker Group? by Opportunist · 2014-12-29 05:54 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Well, you can do a few things to mitigate a DDoS attack. Basically you have to distinguish between two kinds of DDoS. One where a flaw in a service on your side is being exploited and one where your connection is simply flooded with traffic. The first is easy to mitigate: Patch it. Ok, easier said than done in a corporate environment, but you get the idea. If your service is susceptible to a denial of service attack by, say, abusing an implementation flaw, you can actually improve on your service and mitigate the effect fairly easily.
  The other would be where the attacker simply fields superior bandwidth or leverages techniques where little bandwidth use on his side leads to lot of traffic on your side. E.g. DNS-request spoofs. To mitigate that you usually need the cooperation of upstream providers, but I'm kinda certain that Sony can easily "convince" anyone they deal with that they should better aid them in their struggle. E.g. by blocking DNS replies from outside servers further upstream.
  There are ways to mitigate DDoS attacks. But they all cost time and money.
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
9. Re:Hacker Group? by Opportunist · 2014-12-29 05:55 · Score: 1
  
  So you support locking kids up in prisons where they have to expect physical harm for little more than a service interruption? What's your demand for theft? Stoning?
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
10. Re:Hacker Group? by sg_oneill · 2014-12-29 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  The Feds could care less
  They do when a couple of multi billion dollar multinationals with serious US investments come under attack.
  Its all about the money.
  
  --
  Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
11. Re:Hacker Group? by JaneTheIgnorantSlut · 2014-12-29 06:05 · Score: 1
  
  hothardware.com is hardly "all over the news"
12. Re:Hacker Group? by gnasher719 · 2014-12-29 06:13 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  So you support locking kids up in prisons where they have to expect physical harm for little more than a service interruption? What's your demand for theft? Stoning?
  Not "little more". Just a service interruption. But a "service interruption" that was destroying Christmas fun for a few million people.
  
  There was very little damage done to each person. Maybe a minute of jail sentence worth of damage. Multiply by a million, and you get two years.
  
  If you don't realise what a DDoS attack does, then obviously you don't belong in jail. You belong into a home for seriously mentally handicapped people.
13. Re:Hacker Group? by jeffmflanagan · 2014-12-29 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  Why would you expect top men to be involved in investigating the wingnut's Benghazi fake outrage. We leave that to pandering goons like Darrel Issa.
14. Re:Hacker Group? by jeffmflanagan · 2014-12-29 06:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  >distasteful and represents how radical left wing nuts control the media
  
  I can't tell if you're joking, or deeply immersed in wingnut alternate reality.
15. Re:Hacker Group? by westlake · 2014-12-29 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  You mean "script kiddies" who are desperate for attention.
  Fine distinctions of this sort may still matter to the geek, but no one else gives a damn any more.
16. Re:Hacker Group? by RatBastard · 2014-12-29 08:09 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sorry, should we not punish them for breaking the law becuase they didn't cause physical harm or loss of property?
  
  --
  Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
17. Re:Hacker Group? by ultranova · 2014-12-29 08:20 · Score: 1
  
  You mean "script kiddies"
  
  Terrorists. There are bound to be a few muslims in an international group like that.
  
  --
  Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
18. Re:Hacker Group? by Opportunist · 2014-12-29 08:28 · Score: 1
  
  Oh the humanity, your Christmas was ruined. Any other first world problems that plague you?
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
19. Re:Hacker Group? by Opportunist · 2014-12-29 08:30 · Score: 1
  
  Odd. I didn't notice any degradation of service. Then again, I'd be very surprised if it was but a burp compared to the amount of spam that clogs the pipes.
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
20. Re:Hacker Group? by bloodhawk · 2014-12-29 09:20 · Score: 1
  
  really distributing a malware infested torrent would require particular skill? script kiddies can easily launch this sort of attack nowadays, hell if they have money they don't even need to make the effort to distribute malware they could just rent a botnet from one of the underground sites.
21. Re:Hacker Group? by TheUz · 2014-12-29 09:40 · Score: 2
  
  >Oh the humanity, your Christmas was ruined. Any other first world problems that plague you?
  Actions have consequences. A malicious act will invoke measures to cease that act.
  This is not a first world problem. This is a behavior problem.
  
  --
  ^..^
22. Re: Hacker Group? by DivineKnight · 2014-12-29 10:36 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds like someone has never worked IT before (a summer job for many budding programmers during their high school years). Higher level IT wouldn't happen without knowledge of scripting languages (Python, PowerShell (I guess), Perl, etc.).
  As for HR, they can assume I am the postman as long as they meet my hourly rate.
23. Re:Hacker Group? by sysrammer · 2014-12-29 14:21 · Score: 1
  
  Good joke. As a nerd, of course, you already know that "gop" means "Guardians of Peace" in this context.
  
  --
  His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
24. Re:Hacker Group? by arth1 · 2014-12-29 15:22 · Score: 1
  
  Not "little more". Just a service interruption. But a "service interruption" that was destroying Christmas fun for a few million people.
  There was very little damage done to each person. Maybe a minute of jail sentence worth of damage. Multiply by a million, and you get two years.
  It wasn't just the gaming service that got hit. Sony Entertainment Network including "Video Unlimited" (formerly known as Qriocity) went down too. People who had paid up to $9.99 to rent a movie could not watch it in the 24 hours before it expired.
  Same with Music Unlimited which is a subscription service, and where based on earlier incidents, people will NOT get reimbursed by Sony for several days of outages.
25. Re:Hacker Group? by Opportunist · 2014-12-31 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sorry, I didn't know our justice system became binary with nothing between "let them go free" and "lock them up as Bubby's new bride and throw away the key".
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Alias? by ArcadeMan · 2014-12-29 04:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

An alias is supposed to be a cover for your real name. If your name is Ryan C. and you choose "ryanc" as your alias, you're too dumb to be a hacker.

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1. Re:Alias? by Lunix+Nutcase · 2014-12-29 04:26 · Score: 2
  
  Or it would be a great alias for getting a Ryan C in trouble.
2. Re:Alias? by ArcadeMan · 2014-12-29 04:40 · Score: 1
  
  Cryan R. maybe.
  
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  Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
3. Re:Alias? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-29 05:05 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Ryan C. is a pretty good alias when your name is Julius Kivimäki.
4. Re:Alias? by Opportunist · 2014-12-29 05:58 · Score: 2
  
  Still not the best idea to hold your face in front of a camera. So he wins on the alias front, but loses on the cam-whore front.
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
5. Re:Alias? by arth1 · 2014-12-29 15:14 · Score: 2
  
  He's not outside the jurisdiction of the law, but he's outside the jurisdiction of US law.
  Like most European countries, Finland will not extradite minors (or adults for crimes done when a minor). He's 16, so at least he doesn't have to fear the American vengeance system.
  But a couple of years of rehabilitation in a Finnish penitentiary is not impossible, and perhaps likely if he's really done all he's bragged about.
Anonymous did FBI's job for them by bigdady92 · 2014-12-29 04:43 · Score: 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwxLEdKbtRk

All known people in Lizard Squad Identified. Their personal information, their schools, their emails, IP's, address', everything is out there for the world to see.

Majority of these !@#$!@$%!$!$ are kids who deserve punishment of some sorts. Not full physical violence by beating them in the face with a shovel, oh no. Community service like picking up trash and taking care of people in an old folk's home, humiliating and humbling works. Punish them as their lives are now completely screwed for the next 3-5 years.

Anonymous has it's moments. This is one of them.

--
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1. Re:Anonymous did FBI's job for them by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-29 05:02 · Score: 1
  
  Is this Reddit Boston Bomber quality identification? Or is it accurate?
2. Re:Anonymous did FBI's job for them by CaptainDork · 2014-12-29 05:43 · Score: 1
  
  Anonymous has it's moments.
  Especially the moments where the only people with talent (but not enough to go undetected) were captured.
  Anonymous ... isn't so much.
  
  --
  It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
FBI's 4-step process for solving crimes by mandark1967 · 2014-12-29 05:00 · Score: 1

1 - Accuse wrong person
2 - Wait for culprit to confess all over the internet and others to post identification of culprits
3 - Arrest (proof of guilt, optional, but not necessary)
4 - Profit!
See that?! They're so thorough they take the ??? outta step 3!

--
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
1. Re:FBI's 4-step process for solving crimes by __aanbvm4272 · 2014-12-29 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  You forgot #5 And then recruit those dumb kids.
Any other sauce than video? by grimJester · 2014-12-29 05:09 · Score: 1

I'm not going to watch a 22 minute video on this. Seriously, that's the suckiest way of presenting info like this one could imagine.
1. Re:Any other sauce than video? by Talderas · 2014-12-30 01:23 · Score: 1
  
  Info about cam-whores presented by cam-whores.
  
  --
  "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
FBI conclusion reached by Dishwasha · 2014-12-29 05:14 · Score: 1

ryanc is indeed a dumb@$$
Re:it's always haxx0rz with the media... and the f by tom229 · 2014-12-29 06:21 · Score: 1

I wanted to murder these kids on Christmas just as much as anyone else, but allow me to play devil's advocate.

Considering this was mostly likely done with a botnet, and was probably something like a NTP applification DDoS, it's a bit more complicated than your generic script kiddie DDoS carried out by 4chan. Just because a DDoS is relatively easy to do with the right tools, doesn't make it any less of a hack. You could easily argue the best hacking method available is social engineering. Which of course is a method that requires very little technical knowledge and tools.

--
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Re:it's always haxx0rz with the media... and the f by Dutch+Gun · 2014-12-29 10:05 · Score: 1

No, they're undoubtedly script kiddies. They did not write anything of these tools, malware, or attacks themselves. These things are all nicely packaged and easily available to anyone who wants to use them. Seriously, go look around at what's out there. All you need is a bit of technical competence, which most power-users have, and enough time to look through forums and figure out how to use all this stuff.
This isn't hacking. It barely qualifies as clever. It's electronic vandalism, plain and simple. Frankly, this nonsense only works because there are millions of users who are seemingly willing to click on any random shit and get their computers infected with all sorts of nasty malware, and it's easy to subvert those computers into your own personal botnet army. Nearly any competent programmer I personally know of could do this if they really wanted to spend the time and effort doing so, but we choose not to, for pretty obvious reasons.

--
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.