December 25th has been quite an eventful day for gamers. Many new Xbox One and PlayStation 4 owners unwrapped their new devices, only to find out they couldn’t play online — both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network was down all day long thanks to a cyber-terrorist group called Lizard Squad. We scored an exclusive interview with Lizard Squad, the group behind the attack, and learned that they wanted to expose the poor security that both Microsoft and Sony provide (according to Lizard Squad).
Kim Dotcom, a self-proclaimed hacker and internet entrepreneur known for his Mega cloud storage service, offered special vouchers as a peace offering and Lizard Squad happily accepted it. The deal involved an undisclosed amount of lifetime Mega memberships with 500GB of storage. If the attacks on Xbox Live or PSN, for whatever reason, were to resurface, the Mega memberships would be terminated.
Lizard Squad revealed on Twitter that they have stopped the attack and have gone dark as a result. Will they pop back up and attack another service? Who knows, but it is a huge possibility. Xbox Live service status is still limited at the time of this post, but we expect it to be back to normal once the morning hits in the United States. Hopefully gamers can finally enjoy their new Xbox One or PS4 — thanks to Kim Dotcom.
Thanks @KimDotcom for the vouchers–you’re the reason we stopped the attacks. @MegaPrivacy is an awesome service.
— Lizard Squad (@LizardMafia) December 26, 2014
Our ddos was possible thanks to rooted undersea routers used on transatlantic cables.
— Lizard Squad (@LizardMafia) December 26, 2014
Going dark, goodbye for now.
— Lizard Squad (@LizardMafia) December 26, 2014
A Christmas Miracle. How @MegaPrivacy saved @Xbox & @PlayStation from the @LizardMafia attack. Enjoy your games! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/qoaZ33eqCi
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) December 26, 2014
