Lizard Squad have repeatedly targeted the online gaming platforms of Sony and Microsoft over the past year. PSN suffered some major downtime across most of its services yesterday but most news sites and users put it down to the sheer weight of Black Friday traffic.
The PlayStation team tweeted: “We are aware that some users are having connectivity issues with PSN this morning. Thanks for your patience as we investigate.”
The network ended up offline in both the U.S. and Europe. Account sign-in wouldn’t work, online multiplayer refused to connect and people hoping to register new consoles bought at record-low prices in Black Friday sales found it impossible to do so.
It has since emerged that Twitter user @chippyshell has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The profile’s description claims it belongs to the founder of Lizard Squad. Several tweets throughout the day yesterday (some with explicit language) appear to show the group building-up to a major attack. Then, an hour before Sony acknowledged the issues, the account posted “PSN #OFFLINE #CHIPPY #LIZARDSQUAD”, a tweet that was then retweeted by the official Lizard Squad account.
It’s worth noting there is no proof Lizard Squad was behind the outage. The group may be claiming it was to boost its visibility but it is still possible that the network fell apart while handling the waves of new console registrations and people taking the day off work to go shopping and play games. Microsoft’s Xbox Live remained stable throughout Black Friday and PSN came back online a few hours after the outage began.
Lizard Squad is known for its repeated attacks on both services but it has also hacked websites including that of Malaysia Airlines, disabled North Korea’s Internet and taken individual games such as Destiny offline. Last Christmas, thousands of gamers woke up to find both PlayStation Network and Xbox Live offline, an attack claimed by Lizard Squad and since viewed as one of the group’s most notable actions.
Microsoft and Sony couldn’t restore service until December 26. It is alleged that the networks only returned because Lizard Squad halted the onslaught after being offered 3,000 accounts on Kim Dotcom’s MEGA upload service.
