Merry Christmas from Microsoft; Xbox Live goes down (Sony too)

[Exterminator]

Happy holidays from some fools who would rather deliver coal than joy as Microsoft's Xbox Live service is currently down. While the status page does not indicate any issues, a quick search on Twitter shows that hundreds of users are reporting that they cannot connect to the platform.

The reason for the outage is not exactly known, but previously, Lizard Squad said that they would take down the service on Christmas day, and well, here we are, Xbox Live is down.

It's a shame that Microsoft was not able to prepare for the attack considering that this is not the first time the service has been interrupted. More so, for the millions of new Xbox One users, having Xbox Live go offline is a big blow to the user experience.

Currently we are not able to connect to the service at all and when testing the 'Multiplayer' connectivity in the settings tab, we get 100% packet loss; the 'Internet' connection test passes without issue.

And not long after Xbox Live went down, it looks like the Playstation Network is experiencing a disruption as well. Based on Twitter, users are stating that they cannot connect to the platform and even a few readers below have the same issue.

 

[scot]

When Microsoft can't defend/protect itself, how can it be expected to protect others.

 

[Tani]

google.com.pk was also offline for several minutes -_-

 

[scot]

Microsoft should be grateful to KimDotcom for stopping Lizard Squad from continuing their attack on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Services.
It took 3000 vouchers each worth $99 to stop them.

 

[software182]

Looks like KIM saved the day

 

[Ink]

Looks like KIM saved the day

He bribed them, but in during radio interview, they said they won't use the vouchers. Kim Dotcom did not fix the servers of XBL or PSN, it's the employed engineers and IT staff that were able to bring the service back online. No credits goes to them?

 

[scot]

Kim and the self styled Lizard Squad had a deal that they will never attack PlayStation Network and Xbox Live services again, if they do so the lifetime validity of the vouchers will be revoked.

 

[Raul90]

Sony PlayStation, Microsoft xBox Networks Attacked

A gaggle of young misfits that has long tried to silence this Web site now is taking credit for preventing millions of users from playing Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox Live games this holiday season.

The group, which calls itself LizardSquad, started attacking the gaming networks on or around Christmas Day. Various statements posted by self-described LizardSquad members on their open online chat forum — chat.lizardpatrol.com — suggest that these misguided individuals launched the attack for no other reason than because they thought it would be amusing to annoy and disappoint people who received new Xbox and Playstation consoles as holiday gifts.

Such assaults, known as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks — harness the Internet connectivity of many hacked or misconfigured systems so that those systems are forced to simultaneously flood a target network with junk internet traffic. The goal, of course, is to prevent legitimate visitors from being able to load the site or or use the service under attack.

It’s unfortunate that some companies which specialize in DDoS protection services have chosen to promote their products by categorizing these latest attacks as “herculean” and “sophisticated;” these adjectives describe neither the attackers nor their attacks. The sad truth is that these attacks take advantage of compromised and misconfigured systems online, and there are tens of millions of these systems that can be freely leveraged to launch such attacks. What’s more, the tools and instructions for launching such assaults are widely available.

The LizardSquad leadership is closely tied to a cybercrime forum called Darkode[dot]com, a network of ne’er-do-wells that I have written about extensively....