Hackers Take Down Xbox Live and PSN

Many users were left very frustrated on Christmas day as both Xbox Live and Sony’s PlayStation Network were targeted by a group of attackers and both service were down throughout the day. Kids opening up their new consoles were left disappointed when they tried to connect to the internet with no success when hackers take down Xbox Live and PSN.

The hacking group Lizard Squad have since claimed responsibility for the down time after a DDoS attack caused both of the entire networks to go down, leaving millions unable to use their consoles online. A DDoS attack, a Denial of Service Attack, overloads a website with requests resulting in too much to handle which causes the site to go down.

Unfortunately with these kind of attacks, there is no real way to prevent attacks of this nature, as it isn’t technically a hack, A DDoS is simply an overload of a system, something Sony or Microsoft cannot prepare for, or prevent. The group Lizard Squad have not revealed their motives for taking the services offline, but supposedly thanks to an intervention by Mega Upload founder Kim Dotcom, has managed to convince Lizard Squad to stop the attacks, by offering them premium vouchers to the Mega services.

Hopefully by the time you read this, both the PlayStation Network and Microsoft’s Xbox Live will be both back online. For all those who were excited getting new consoles at Christmas, and left unable to play them, will now finally be able to connect online.