Updated at 3.08pm
ECCENTRIC INTERNET MOGUL Kim Dotcom has taken credit for stopping a Christmas cyber attack on Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s Xbox networks.
The two systems suffered a major outage after an apparent hack yesterday stopped many users across the world from logging into online networks for the gaming devices.
A “hacking community” called the Lizard Squad claimed responsibility for the attack – which it said via Twitter had only been stopped after Dotcom stepped in.
“A Christmas miracle,” the MegaUpload founder, who has been fighting extradition from his New Zealand home to the US to face copyright infringement charges, tweeted to his 400,000-odd followers.
A Twitter account, claiming to be from the Lizard Squad, said its hack attacks on the gaming networks had stopped about midnight but the systems were still down from the “aftermath”.
Neither Sony or Microsoft admitted hackers were behind the outage, although both warned users on Christmas that they had been suffering problems – which still appeared to be rife today.
A notice on the Xbox website said there were issues with members signing in to their accounts and with several of its apps.
“We’re aware of this issue, and we’re working to find a fix ASAP!,” it said.
“We appreciate your patience in the meantime, and we encourage you to retry signing in when you get a chance. We’ll update you as soon as we know more.”
Sony also said it was working on the problem this morning via its Twitter feed.
Meanwhile, scores of unhappy gamers complained about having their systems down over Christmas.
Lizard Squad
The Lizard Squad is the same group which claimed responsibility for previous attacks on both the networks – earlier adding the bizarre comment that it had “planted the ISIS flag” on Sony’s servers.
Several Twitter accounts claiming to belong to the hackers threatened to keep disrupting the gaming networks yesterday and today unless people responded to messages or bulked up their following.
This afternoon many users were still complaining they were unable to log in to the game networks, while others were unimpressed with both Dotcom and the hackers’ tactics.
Nothing to do with North Korea then?
The latest outage comes only a day after Sony decided to release the film which sparked much of its recent controversies, The Interview, in cinemas and via YouTube yesterday.
It suffered a series of embarrassing leaks after an early hack attack, which has been blamed on North Korea, led to previously unreleased films and sensitive company information being made public.
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