Hacker group Phantom Squad is claiming responsibility for an online attack of Microsoft's Xbox Live service last night. Xbox Live was struck with a distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attack that left servers overloaded and unable to log in several users.
The similarity to a hacking attack allegedly conducted by a group called Lizard Squad last Christmas, in addition to threats made by Phantom Squad on Twitter, may point to Sony's PlayStation Network as the group's next target.
The Phantom Squad Twitter account, though currently suspended, tweeted "Xbox Live #Offline" as Xbox Live's servers were attacked, also stating that "PSN is next..."
The group's claimed reason behind its actions is cybersecurity, or, rather, the lack thereof. "Why do we take down PSN and Xbox Live? Because cyber security does not exist," the group tweeted. That said, the group also reportedly cited that "some men just want to watch PSN and Xbox Live burn" as another motive.
While Phantom Squad has claimed no affiliation with Lizard Squad, the name of the group and timing of threats creates a sense of déjà vu with last year's PSN and Xbox Live outages.
Xbox's support staff has been updating progress on its website in regards to amending its servers, stating, "We are aware of these issues and are working to get it fixed ASAP!"
Side note: For anyone planning to give a new PlayStation 4 or Xbox One as a gift this holiday, we would suggest taking the unit out of the packaging and installing all the necessary firmware updates in advance, should hacked servers or increased Christmas traffic prevent you from setting up the console on the 25th.
