Phantom Squad Starts Christmas DDoS Attacks by Taking Down EA Servers

[Exterminator]

Content source

http://news.softpedia.com/news/phantom-squad-starts-christmas-ddos-attacks-by-taking-down-ea-servers-498078.shtml

Phantom Squad, the hacking group that announced DDoS attacks on the Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network from December 24 up to December 31, has started its assault with a small attack on the EA (Electronic Arts) servers.

The hacking group, acting just like LizardSquad last year, is poised to ruin Christmas for gamers this year again, and since the beginning of December, it has been launching small DDoS attacks on both Xbox Live and PSN, but with short downtimes.

A few days ago, two other groups, VandaSec and PhantomSec, also pledged their support for Phantom Squad's cause.

Previously, the group also attacked the Steam network and a few servers for games such as Star Wars: The Old Republic, Grand Theft Auto 5, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. All these attacks were very short and seem to have been only tests.

Since it's December 24, we now see that Phantom Squad wasn't joking and has already launched a very powerful DDoS attack on EA's servers, taking them down for the last three hours.

The attack was so severe that the company took notice and had to apologize to its customers on its Twitter account.

As soon as EA admitted to the attacks, PhantomSquad stopped the DDoS and announced via their Twitter account new attacks on the PlayStation Network. Soon after, some users started reporting problems with PSN via Twitter. The attack doesn't seem very strong now, and the service keeps going down and back up again.

Stay tuned for more updates.

UPDATE 1: PSN seems to be hanging on strong, for now, no downtimes listed on its website.

UPDATE 2: Phantom Squad announces that a former LizardSquad member has joined their ranks: @RootedExploit.

UPDATE 3: December 24, 23:30, the PlayStation Network starts experiencing the first problems. From EA's wesbite:

"Affected Platforms: PS4

Affected Services: You may have some difficulty launching games, applications, or online features. Our engineers are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, and we thank you for your patience."

Apologies for the inconvenience. We're working hard to resolve log in and connection issues which are currently affecting many game titles. — EA Support (@AskEASupport) December 24, 2015 EA is currently experiencing an outage. EA games, services & support may be impacted. We’re working to resolve as fast as possible. — EA Support (@AskEASupport) December 24, 2015 All attacks stopped on EA SERVERS!!! — Phantom Squad (@phantomsquad69) December 24, 2015 @RealPhantomRaid @phantomsquad69 PSN servers are offline pic.twitter.com/TBH2N9qdVc — Danish Khan (@BruvFollowMe) December 24, 2015

 

[Deleted Member 333v73x]

This is just pointless, what do these hackers get out of it!?

 

[Exterminator]

This is just pointless, what do these hackers get out of it!?

Ruining Xmas for a bunch of children I guess It is really pointless.What a shame to ruin a holiday for a lot of people.

 

[Rishi]

Mostly trolls do it just to sabotage or do it for their own ego thumping.

 

[DracusNarcrym]

So much showing off, these kids. Literally, DDoS is so easy with all these open source tools freely available around the web. They just needed to get to the inter-oceanic Internet cables and do some patch-work to get the DDoS attacks going. It's not science, not anymore - it's just routine. Also, there are no data breaches, these people only cause server performance issues. So it is obviously a show-off.

 

[illumination]

These are not hackers but script kiddies with no morals or ethics.

 

[DracusNarcrym]

These are not hackers but script kiddies with no morals or ethics.

@illumination said it the most straightforward way.

 

[ElectricSheep]

These people are just the dregs in the bottom of the barrel, not fit to be called humans.

 

[Ink]

So it is obviously a show-off.

Until they are arrested, then hide behind some false medical claim.