Christmas Day 2014 was a day of disappointment for PlayStation and Xbox owners everywhere. The PlayStation Network and Xbox Live were inaccessible and no one, not even customer service, could tell them why or when access would be restored. Later, Lizard Squad introduced themselves to the world, announcing that they were behind the devastating DDoS attack that rendered the online services unusable for several days . Soon after, an FBI trace led to a 16-year-old Finnish boy named Ryan . At that point, it was assumed that the nuisance would be taken care of, until it was clear that Lizard Squad was here to stay .
First, it was actually notorious Megaupload mogul, Kim Dotcom, who saved the day by offering those responsible for the attacks a total of $300,000 in vouchers for his Megaprivacy file-sharing and cloud service site, via Twitter on December 26. Lizard Squad accepted.
On December 30, Lizard Squad launched a paid hacking service dubbed Lizard Stresser. That's right. You can reportedly pay Lizard Squad to take down any site you want.
On January 27th, Lizard Squad struck again. This time, Facebook, Instagram and Malaysia Airlines were the alleged victims and that's where things got a little more interesting. Facebook and Instagram were able to get back online very quickly, and hacktivist group Anonymous got in on the action and hacked the hackers, giving them a taste of their own DDoS medicine and tweeting: “LizardSquad website has been cleaned out and is offline: lizardpatrol.com . LizardSquad Twitter is now suspended: @lizardmafia. We WIN.”
And thus, a new Internet war has been officially declared. Who will win remains to be seen. Anonymous are experienced and organized. Lizard Squad ruined Christmas. My money is on Anon.
Check out Anonymous' creepy video below. And yes, in case you were wondering, Lizard Stresser's Twitter account is still up.