Lizard Squad was an unfamiliar name to most just two weeks ago. However, the their distributed denial-of-service (or DDoS as it’s more commonly known) attacks on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live over the holidays changed that. Lizard Squad are a loosely affiliated group of hackers who took credit for the PSN and Xbox Live outages that left millions worldwide with no escape from awkward family encounters during the holidays. It seems that one of the alleged members of Lizard Squad was arrested in the United Kingdom on December 31st. The police press release says, “The South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) has arrested a 22-year-old man from Twickenham on suspicion of fraud by false representation and Computer Misuse Act offences. The arrest yesterday (30/12) is in connection with an ongoing investigation into cyber fraud offences which took place between 2014 and August 2014 during which victims reported funds being stolen from their PayPal accounts.”
The 22 year old man in question is Vinnie Omari who decided to share details of his arrest via email. Omari claims, “They took everything. Xboxone, phones, laptops, computers USBs, etc.” Omari, who is currently free on bail, is not the only member of Lizard Squad who has garnered some unwanted attention from authorities. The FBI is currently following up on leads to determine the extent of another Lizard Squad member’s involvement in the holiday DDoS attack. So the big question is, why did Lizard Squad want to attack Xbox Live and PlayStation Network servers? It may have something to do with their newest service called Lizard Stressor. Lizard Stressor will allow anybody the ability to utilize Lizard Squad’s server crushing DDoS attacks; for a fee of course. You can pay anywhere between $6 and $500 to use Lizard Stressor to attack the target of your choice. (And who says crime doesn’t pay?) According to a Lizard Squad member, who is fittingly named dragon, the PSN and Xbox Live attacks were simply a marketing scheme for Lizard Stressor. Imprisonment seems to be quite the price to pay for some members of Lizard Squad for a marketing ploy. Were you affected by the Lizard Squad attacks on Sony and Microsoft? What do you think of the group’s Lizard Stressor?