PhantomSquad Hackers Begin Their Xmas DDoS Attacks By Taking Down EA Servers (softpedia.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The hacking crew was not kidding about their Christmas DDoS attacks on Xbox & PSN. This morning the group started warmup attacks on the EA network, taking it down for 3 hours. The attacks were severe enough to take down the network completely, and EA issued apologies on its Twitter account. Phantom Squad is now carrying out DDoS attacks on PSN. Users started reporting outages in small areas around the world.

Comments

Refresh my memory

[Revek]

Whats the goal? Is to just be pricks?

Re:Refresh my memory

[cfalcon]

The DDOS attacks will continue until network infrastructure prevents it.

I think this group wants a name for themselves, and that may be the end of it, but who knows. The point isn't to ask why the rain falls- it's to wonder why we can't build a roof.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats the goal? Is to just be pricks?

What else are you going to do from mom's basement? Especially when the girl you've never actually talked to has gone to visit relatives and you turned off her phone?

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats the goal? Is to just be pricks?

Pretty much, yeah. That, and to get a little bit of notoriety.

Re:Refresh my memory

[gweilo8888]

They're just trying to inflate their sense of self-importance, and calling them hackers as this article does helps accomplish that. Just like terrorists, the only way to stop these assholes is to stop giving them the spotlight (unless it is to mock them). Either call them what they are -- script kiddies -- or just don't talk about them at all. Even if they manage to DDOS your favorite game server, in the bigger picture they've accomplished nothing at all. Get up, stretch your legs, find something else to do and ignore them. It's what they deserve.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Phoenix Rising]

To prove that anarchist pajamas-in-Mom's-basement types can be more antisocial than Scrooge and the Grinch, perhaps. Otherwise, I can't even begin to guess at what bright flame of sub-genius decided this would be a good idea.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Deadstick]

Same motivation as any other vandal or bully: losers wanting to impose their will, the only way they know how. Straight-up male-primate shit.

Re:Refresh my memory

[tehlinux]

>Whats the goal? Is to just be pricks?

They are attention whores. I've been referring to them as lizard squad in hopes it will piss them off.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you talking about EA or the hackers?

I'm... having trouble knowing who to root for here. Is there any way they can both lose?

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a political agenda to bring more public funding to prevent child abuse. They are demanding that the Obama administration introduce a bill for this purpose and they will stop.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly the goal.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just trying to inflate their sense of self-importance, and calling them hackers as this article does helps accomplish that. Just like terrorists, the only way to stop these assholes is to stop giving them the spotlight (unless it is to mock them). Either call them what they are -- script kiddies -- or just don't talk about them at all. Even if they manage to DDOS your favorite game server, in the bigger picture they've accomplished nothing at all. Get up, stretch your legs, find something else to do and ignore them. It's what they deserve.

^ This, too many people call these Dumb A's "hackers". DDOS attacks are not "hacking" anything. Just some punks looking for their 2 mins of fame. To my knowledge (limited) these types of attacks can’t be prevented, so it’s not even a matter that they are "exposing" anything that can be upgraded. It would be one thing if it was a decrypting issue where customer data was being hacked (PSN network hack years ago), these guys are just A-Holes.

Re:Refresh my memory

[meerling]

In short, Yes.
Though I did hear a rumor that they were also doing it to demonstrate their attack system so they can sell/rent it to people.
There are many ways to demonstrate something like that, but of course, they chose to do it in a gratuitously mean fashion that will piss of lots of people.
Other than that, they're just trying to wave their dicks around. Pretty much a failure at impressing anyone, it's not like this is a new accomplishment or anything, they are just doing the same thing lots of people have done before them, so their just a bunch of wannabe griefers with little to no talent.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

If I park my car in the middle of the interstate I can disrupt traffic too, doesn't take any brains to do it tho. Just like their ddos.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Could be a philosophical difference too.

Maybe this group thinks these big video game companies have totally enslaved children and their ability to entertain themselves without sitting in front of a game console or computer. That, coupled with the greed of these big game companies and their monthly memberships to access things, and "DLC".

It could have nothing to do with the former and everything with the latter.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Bite The Pillow]

Anger, probably. Two time worst company, barely lost a threepeat. EA has improved, but not enough.

http://consumerist.com/2014/03...

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much.
Also, it's a decent way to advertise your ddos capability, if you are planning to lease it.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like how Trump's campaign has played out so far...

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

>Whats the goal? Is to just be pricks?

They are attention whores. I've been referring to them as lizard squad in hopes it will piss them off.

pussysquad sounds better

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

It's none of that. They're demonstrating their botnet capability, so that butthurt kids who lose at Halo will pay them to DoS other players.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pretty sexist. It can be a girl in mom's basement that is doing this too!

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully women never try to impose their will with the only way they know how. Only males.

Re:Refresh my memory

[DNS-and-BIND]

Oh, this could not be more wrong. Male primates don't do this for shits and grins, they do it to gain females, or to gain power (which is pretty much the same thing when you think about it). These are unfit males that will not be successful, and in an earlier age they would have been outcast or killed for acting in this way. The only way in which we can hurt them these days is by public shaming, but their internet anonymity protects them. Now maybe we begin to understand why war was so popular in earlier ages, it did a wonderful job of cleansing society of these undesirable males.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

OR FART FACE SQUAD RIGHT hahahahah!!!!!!!

I don't think you understood the GP

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure they have roofs capable of stopping the rain.
A bunch of fuckwits turning up with water cannons is a different story.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Women would never stoop so low.

Re:Refresh my memory

[SirSlud]

You can't even make it through the summary? The hacks have targeted multiple companies/platforms in the past. Their targets have nothing to do with brand/corporate reputation.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

To bring attention to themselves.

Whoops.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

We only know the target is a girl, we know nothing about the originator. For all you know, the originator was a girl in her mom's basement all along! What are you, homophobic?

Re:Refresh my memory

[AchilleTalon]

Better compare with Jehova witnesses who are knocking at your door. Surely, your door prevent them to enter unless you open it, however while they are knocking at your door and you don't want to open, another legitimate person may knock as well and you will not let him/her enter because of the Jehova witnesses still knocking at your door. I don't believe there is a way to stop DDoS without stopping legitimate users since they are impersonating legitimate users. To stop them, you need to prevent them to impersonate legitimate users. Once done, you can filter them out.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Got 'em

Re:Refresh my memory

[penguinoid]

Whats the goal? Is to just be pricks?

Their goal is probably to be pricks and make a name for themselves. However, they also are performing a valuable service: reminding Joe WhyShouldIcareAboutDRM that their gaming experience is subject to the whim of game servers, possibly even for offline games, and they will be unable to play should the game company decide to drop support or get overloaded.

Non-DRM games are immune to this. Note that for some games, the only non-DRM versions are the pirated ones.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

A roof can be built, it just costs a lot of money. And customers will end up paying for it.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank god all the successful people in power are just so nice, and would never fuck over millions of people for personal gain. Only losers do that.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

"totally enslaved children and their ability to entertain themselves without sitting in front of a game console or computer" Sounds like the parents of these "enslaved kids" should be the ones under attack. And people have something called free will but never seem to be able to exercise that free wheel so they lash out at others because it is obviously not there fault their life is not up to par. If you think the games being sold are to expensive you have several choices. Chose not to buy the expensive games and find something else to occupy your free time or develop your own games.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a very convincing "attack". They hardly took anything down and only for a couple hours.

Besides, the only people who will care are shallow religious nutjobs who celebrate Moneymas(tm) and won't be able to play their Xmas video game presents.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure there is. Filtering and packet inspection can easily mitigate DDOS attacks while allowing legitimate use. This is why companies who know what they are doing aren't affected by constant attacks.

Notice how this only affects incompetent companies like EA, Sony and Microsoft? How come we never see IBM, Google or Amazon having problems with DDOS attacks?

Re:Refresh my memory

[Time_Ngler]

I think if you truly understand filtering and packet inspection, you could frame it in a way where you are talking about Jehovah's witnesses. The OP clearly stated the Jehovah's witnesses impersonate the legitimate door knockers.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that comparison would be noticing that there's normally a little bit of humidity, and then bitching when it actually starts raining.

The individuals involved don't matter. That's why it's always not helpful (societally) when some random trollish hacker is caught- it tells society that "the problem is resolved". It isn't.

Re:Refresh my memory

[cfalcon]

Customers pay for a product and get it? That sounds like a business plan. What we have now is "customers pay for a product and don't get it".

Build the roof.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:Refresh my memory

[Deadstick]

they do it to gain females, or to gain power

Ummm, isn't that what I said?

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

to win "nintendo is best because it work's" forum arguments.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it only requires competence.

And customers are already paying. So why the fuck aren't these companies providing? Where is all of that money disappearing to?

Captcha: quality

Re:Refresh my memory

[sycodon]

A group of anonymous people want a name for themselves?

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if they burned the fucker at the stake, the others would be less inclined to be pricks

Re:Refresh my memory

[cfalcon]

If they didn't, they wouldn't be named PhantomSquad, and on twitter.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

To force the developers to work on xmas I guess. They think they're hurting EA, they're really just hurting the people and their families who work at the bottom level.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

I see. So would-be attackers just choose not to use the same techniques against Google or Amazon for some reason, only against Sony and Microsoft.

Re:Refresh my memory

[mattventura]

But if your legitimate customers take up 10Gb/s of bandwidth at peak times, while the DDoSers have 500Gb/s they can clog your pipe with, does it really make sense to build 50x the capacity that you would otherwise ever need just to foil an occasional DDoS attack? I don't buy 50 cars just in case the other 49 get stolen.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Time_Ngler]

Sony PSN and XboxLive use a different protocol then Google or Amazon. It's likely there are more expensive operations that the former networks have to support. It's like having a doorbell that plays a very long musical tone for the pizza man which the Jehovah's witness are continually pressing. And you aren't playing the game... probably because you have no idea what you are talking about.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than that, they're just trying to wave their dicks around.

With enough small pricks and you can take down something large.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Mooslims say MOO! MOO! Moo say the mooslims!

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop making excuses for these vermin. EA aren't bothered, they don't lose money, they already have sales income. It's the consumer that's getting fucked by these sad tossers. They're the ones losing their gaming time, perhaps the only period they have available after working seven days a week doing shitty jobs to make ends meet. Millions of people are being denied access to products and services they purchased because a few dweebs run bots for the LOLs.

So go and do one yourself, faggot.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the fuck up, neckbeard.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Nigger means "black" in latin based lanugages, and in Russian.

Not "ignorant".

It's just a color.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Better compare with Jehova witnesses who are knocking at your door. Surely, your door prevent them to enter unless you open it, however while they are knocking at your door and you don't want to open, another legitimate person may knock as well and you will not let him/her enter because of the Jehova witnesses still knocking at your door. I don't believe there is a way to stop DDoS without stopping legitimate users since they are impersonating legitimate users. To stop them, you need to prevent them to impersonate legitimate users. Once done, you can filter them out.

The JV talk amongst themselves. They have some sort of list of "potentials" and "do not bother" they use. Point a shotgun at one of them once, and they never come back. (Likewise for coming to the door naked holding a jar of peanut butter. Just about anything really off the wall works.)

That would probably work for the DOS idiots too. A couple of the kids with control access getting a trial (without bail) with photos going into the back alley door of the jail in an orange jump suit would probably stop a lot of it.

I don't believe governments don't know who these guys are. But they probably use them themselves or just don't care.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

They say "Christmas is meant to be spent with family, not playing video games"

Re:Refresh my memory

[KGIII]

This is not *entirely* true. Well, it might be true. Way back in the 1990s, I answered the door completely naked and it was Jehovah's Witnesses. I'd just gotten out of the shower and I heard the knock on the door. I told them I was naked and that I'd get dressed but that they could come in. The two old ladies came in, probably saw my butt as I went down the hall, and waited patiently for me.

I spent a few months studying with them because I knew nothing about their religion and was curious. They were aware that I wasn't likely to suddenly become a religious person. I even went to church (Kingdom Hall) with 'em a couple of times to see what the people were like. (They had some rather hot and eligible chicks but I suspect they have a touch of the crazy.)

They do not celebrate Christmas.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite, "negro" is black in Latin languages, and black in Russian is chernyy. That's not to say they don't use the pejorative as well, but it doesn't mean black as in the color.

Re:Refresh my memory

[rossz]

Do I have to explain why Sony is bad? Here of all places you retarded piece of shit?

Yes, you do need to explain why Sony is bad. Sony BMG? Different company with no real association with Playstation. OtherOS? An "extra" that was never advertised and was not officially supported. So, yes, please explain you retarded piece of shit.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

I say we prick the pricks wit stakes. MMM steak I'm hungry. What was the topic again?

My steak goes mooooooo. Sorry I had to. Poet and didn't know it.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Tony sopranos just calls them shines. Or spooks. Or Moolies.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Or play Heroes or the storm, or league of legends. Both free. Both are expensive if you want to spend money. But spending money on those = shiney new, it's not pay to play or pay to win.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Neck beard just owned you. And all you can say is stfu. Wow, imma start calling you young millelenials no neck beards. Bald face pussies for short.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

So pretty much all of American damn near?

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting this to just you for FYI purposes. Your thoughts on the matter are correct.

A data center I used to work at employed a DDoS analysis and prevention system which had some really advanced algorithms used to block these things. It didn't _just_ involve packet inspection, it also involved historical trending and automated null routing requests to the upstream provider. To liken it to the "Jehova's Witness" example:

A "Jehova's Witness" person has to drive to your house via several secured routes. Most cars are just passing by, but you see a few cars being stopped off to the side and being refused entry, but the "Jehova's Witness" person is flagged through (upstream provider). They reach your neighborhood and approach your house, a supervisor who watches what types of visitors you usually get notices that they are abnormal, and immediately flags them as suspicious, but does not impede them. There is a traffic director who points them down a path to your door. They reach your door; you open it; they start talking to you and you immediately slam the door ^W^W^W^W politely ask them to leave. As they leave, the supervisor notices that they weren't dispatched the same way that most visitors are dispatched: there stay was short, and they looked a bit miffed that they hadn't gotten the response they were looking for, and they leave.

So the "Jehova's Witnesses" call their friends and decide you need an intervention, suddenly you have a ton of "Jehova's Witnesses" heading down the roads to come see you at your place. They pass the secured roads, and start walking up to your home. The supervisor immediately notices that there is an influx of this traffic anomaly (abnormal amount of traffic for this time of day/week/month) and tells the traffic director that he is to send any visitors who have not been previously verified down the second path which leads to an inspection and validation facility.

Any new traffic—including the "Jehova's Witness" influx—is now directed away from your door and to this facility where they verify their ID, and license plate number on their car, and compare them against previous visitors, if they seem all right, they are sent down the path to your door otherwise, they are sent away and the secured roads are informed to no longer allow that car down the road.. Say they still get through, you answer your door, roll your eyes, and send them away; the supervisor notifies the upstream to no longer allow traffic from that plate.

You might be overloaded with traffic for a short time, but eventually this processes kill off enough of the DDoS to make it shruggable. This is obviously a very elaborate setup and it cost the data center I worked at a small fortune to set it up, but it works extremely well. Many customers who would get DDoS'ed all the time suddenly had no issues with this. I don't know exactly how the algorithms in the device work, but I have the basic knowledge that it does comparison, trending, and inspection for determining which traffic it blocks or sends upstream. At the very least it limits new traffic to the destination host while allowing verified traffic to flow unimpeded.

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you are a clueless noob. Go learn something about networking.

Google and Amazon have to deal with far more traffic across a much more diverse set of circumstances. Stop trying to make excuses for Sony and Microsoft, shill.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

So pretty much all of American damn near?

Yes, an insignificant percentage of the global population.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

"NIgger" is a mutation of "negro" or "negre". Stop being so dense.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Go get some exercise and take a shower, fatboy. You're disgusting.

Re:Refresh my memory

[UsuallyReasonable]

Don't get me started on "automated null routing" which got non-infringing servers of mine turned off on a regular basis. It ain't perfect.

Re:Refresh my memory

[UsuallyReasonable]

Non-DRM games are immune to this.

Oh please.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon has been DDoSed

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon has been DDoSed

Unsuccessfully. You forgot to mention that part.

Re: Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

. Bald face pussies for short.

What I would do for some bald face pussy right now....

Re:Refresh my memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to hear that. =/

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply it was perfect, but it's pretty effective. And from a network admin's perspective, it is easier to handle the mistakes than the DDoS attack.

hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

but why?

Spoiled Little Children

[JimMcc]

Maybe at some point in their lives, if they ever grow up, they'll learn that just because you can doesn't mean you should

Re:Spoiled Little Children

[CanadianMacFan]

There are many people who have grown up that could also follow that advice.

"I know we're in a drought but let's just plant more water thirsty trees and drain the aquifer."

"Let's release these GM insects. Nothing could possibly go wrong." (Heard on a science podcast that they are getting close to doing this. And the GM crops have been so successful in reducing herbicide use.)

They do realize that if you take away

[future assassin]

peoples entertainment those people will not side with their fill in "I' got teenage angst against this" issues?

Live attack map

[guardiangod]

Just look at Norse Attack Map

Lots o NTPf traffic from China

http://map.norsecorp.com/

Re:Live attack map

[Harlequin80]

Fascinating to watch that. I wonder what mechanism they are using. I suspect that they have found a weakness in Beijing Hsoft which allows them to use their NTP servers to amplify.

Re:Live attack map

[Anonymous Coward]

"Beijing Hsoft" appears to be a commercial software sub-licensing agency.

But maybe there's nothing special about that one. There's no such thing as computer security in China. Plenty of old, never-updated boxes running Windows XP and nobody gives a damn. Of course any DDoS team worthy of their moisture are using zombie boxes in that country, and probably Hsoft simply has the combination of best infrastructure and worst security practice.

Re:Live attack map

[jon3k]

You don't need a weakness per say, you just need to be able to spoof the source address.

Re:Live attack map

[Harlequin80]

No not a weakness but a poorly configured NTP server. They should be either running a later version of NTP where this amplification method was fixed or having their system configured to require a nonce. That way spoofing wont work.
 

Re:Live attack map

[ssufficool]

So the lesson is, we will continue to attack you until this other company fixes their server. Wow.

In another story, my neighbor is shitting on my lawn because their plumbing is broke. Court of public opinion finds me at fault.

Re:Live attack map

[Dutch Gun]

Don't expect anything but the thinnest veneer of an excuse as to why they're doing this. They're going this because they're angsty teenage males with lots of testosterone and no power, so this is how they vent their frustration at the unfairness of the (first) world. Taking down a multi-billion-dollar international corporation's network is undoubtedly a power trip for them.

It's really nothing more than digital vandalism. I wish the media would label it as such rather than "hacking".

Re:Live attack map

[Chris Mattern]

Just look at Norse Attack Map

I would, but it appears to be broken. Could someone, ironically, be DDOSing it?

PhantomDick?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never heard of these PhantomDick losers before.

Anonymous

[Anonymous Coward]

At least they are not claiming to be Anonymous. Otherwise they would be opening them up to a big can of woopass.

Re: Anonymous

[Anonymous Coward]

That will happen anyway. Anonymous has painted a big day-glo target on its collective back already. Their days are numbered.

as they should

[Gravis Zero]

EA issue apologies on its Twitter account

it's about time! have you seen what they do to game series'? now what's all this business about DDoS attacks? ;)

Go online to play an offline game

[Calydor]

If it wasn't for validation servers for strictly offline games, eg. The Sims, this wouldn't be half as bad. It's when people don't get to play an offlline game because a server somewhere is down or messed up that things get ugly.

Re:Go online to play an offline game

[Anonymous Coward]

And things should get ugly. People should be pissed at the game companies that require online for single player.

The correct solution

[rossz]

I got in trouble at work once when I proposed a solution to deal with the massive number of attacks we were receiving from China. I said, "block China completely and call it a day." It seems I was "culturally insensitive."

Re:The correct solution

[Anonymous Coward]

> It seems I was "culturally insensitive."

Or it could be that blocking an entire country is just incredibly stupid.

Oh sorry, was that insensitive of me?

Re:The correct solution

[Calydor]

Depends on the site.

If you're running a local e-commerce site that sells only to a single state or county rather than the entire country, let alone to China, blocking China at the gate doesn't really seem that bad of a business move.

Re:The correct solution

[rossz]

When 99% of an attack are coming from a single nation's ip addresses, it makes sense to block them, if only temporarily.

Re:The correct solution

[Anonymous Coward]

No. That wasn't insensitive. It *was* a retarded thing to say, especially in reference to China.

1. If you do business there, you have a government controlled company already in China. On your international site, block away!
2. If you don't do business there, block away!

I'd also recommend blocking Russia, North Korea (lol), and all of Africa. You won't miss them.

Re:The correct solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly because economically the US will do just fine without China, right? I'd say they wouldn't last the morning in Wall St. In fact it would be "unblocked" before lunch LOL.

It would be a nice April fools but :D

You've been fooled!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah! Everyone here thinks it's a bunch of pussy boys in mom's basement. Women have got you so deceived that you don't even consider them as being a group doing these 'hacks'. It's women guys, they're the ones in the basement taking down the gaming networks because they hate us dudes gaming through the holidays. It's not guys/boys!

Re:You've been fooled!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dawg, woeman huh? Who woulda though?

I just want to ask. How does the lowest of societies darwinist threshold manage to make it on this website?

not the first time, when will MSFT fix it?

[peter303]

PS may be a-holes, but they pointing out an unfixed problem.

Re:not the first time, when will MSFT fix it?

[jader3rd]

PS may be a-holes, but they pointing out an unfixed problem.

I'm sorry, but how is it a problem? If they never did the attack, then the network would never go down. At least not go down because of the servers being hit with orders of magnitude more requests than what they're designed for.

Re:not the first time, when will MSFT fix it?

[Harlequin80]

Not specifically a MSFT problem. It will happen on any NTP server that will respond to a monlist request without first requiring a nonce verification of the senders IP address.

Send this command ntpdc –c monlist 1xx.xxx.xxx.xx9 (where x is your target NTP server) and you will get a much larger response. Combine that with a spoofed return address and you have your DDOS attach vector.

Time to turn the screws

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just another episode that demonstrates beyond all reasonable doubts that general purpose computers are not for the public anymore. There are too many services dependent on the internet now, and with the Internet of Things security will become a paramount issue.

We must ban ordinary citizens from possessing general purpose computers. It's as simple as that. I understand many cannot have the scope to grasp this, but it's only logical: we're not in the '80s anymore. Nobody needs a programmable computer. We can all work and have our leisure time with locked-down devices. One dejected individual with a general purpose computer is like a madman with a gun: it's not acceptable. Programmers and developers will have to be registered with the authorities and work with reputable firms, and have their machines audited remotely so that we can be sure they won't devise any illegal software. Ban general purpose computers now.

Re:Time to turn the screws

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Ban general purpose computers now.

Yes, that seems entirely reasonable and practical.

The idiots found a hammer

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

That's all this is, no different than giving a mentally retarded asshole a hammer and directing them to a store that sells fine china.

"Hurr durr, lookit me, guys, I can break stuff, lololol! Wow, ain't I kool? Lookit mah leet skillz!"

What these little shits need is a good ass-kicking, perhaps to the point of hospitalization.

Re:The idiots found a hammer

[Anonymous Coward]

Was your post meant to be ironic, or are you just a Dunning-Kruger specimen?

prove it

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm so tired of hearing about some loser wannabe script kiddie sitting in his mom's basement trying to look cool. we have absolutely zero proof that they are the ones doing this. for all we know, some people got an advance copy of some EA game and it killed their servers.

Script kiddies

[Anonymous Coward]

All because mummy and daddy would not buy them the latest and greatest games, this is how they throw their temper tantrums.

They didn't bother with Simpsons Tapped Out

[mea2214]

I've been checking in every 4 hours without a glitch (knock on wood).

LiveStream already hacked

[Anonymous Coward]

LiveStream was already hacked today

EA huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

So... nothing of value was lost then.

DDOS is not hacking.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but DDOS is not hacking. It is not showing anyone the security deficiencies in Sony/MS/EA's systems. All it is doing is showing they can saturate network connections with more bandwidth than the other can supply. With their current MO, PhantomSquad are nothing more than script kiddies hoping to outdo LizardSquad in a DDOS pissing contest. That is all. PhantomSquad can claim all they like that they are just trying to show up security vulnerabilities, but their actions speak louder than words. DDOSing Sony/MS/EA at Christmas proves nothing more that these are stupid self-absorbed kids just trying to be famous.

lol, betas

[Anonymous Coward]

On Christmas Day all the betas stop 'batin' to My Little Pony rape porn long enough to run some scripts.

Microsoft Windows Xmas DDoS attacks ..

[nickweller]

By any chance would this DDOS farm run on Microsoft Windows desktop computers?