Sony’s PlayStation network remained offline on Friday, on the second day of an outage that began roiling the online gaming world just as eager players were unwrapping new consoles on Christmas.
Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, which also went down on Thursday, was back online on Friday, although the firm reported problems with some functions in the afternoon.
On Twitter, credit for the disruptions was claimed by a self-proclaimed group of hackers called Lizard Squad — or someone purporting to speak for the group.
Photo: Bloomberg
However, many video game enthusiasts and some other hacker groups condemned their actions.
Even Kim Dotcom, an online entrepreneur based in New Zealand who has been accused of abetting Internet piracy, got into the act by offering free vouchers for his online privacy service — if the Lizard Squad would agree to restore the Xbox network.
A Lizard Squad account on Twitter appeared to credit Dotcom’s offer for the partial restoration of Xbox service on Friday.
However, exactly what happened is still unclear: Neither Sony nor Microsoft would say what disrupted their networks.
Meanwhile, experts say it is difficult to trace the source of suspected attacks or to confirm claims of responsibility.
Sony Online Entertainment said on Friday on its Web site that its Playstation network was still down, adding on Twitter: “We are working to restore full network services for all platforms — thanks, as always, for your patience.”
A Microsoft support site said Xbox Live was available at midday on Friday, but it reported new problems in the afternoon.
Signs of trouble emerged earlier this month when someone using a Lizard Squad account on Twitter began threatening to disrupt gaming services on Christmas — and then boasted of causing the outages on Thursday.
A person or group using the same name on Twitter took credit in August for similar attacks in which suspected hackers overwhelmed company servers with Internet traffic, disrupting online gaming networks operated by Sony, Riot Games and other firms.
The same account was also used in August to make an apparently false report that a bomb was on an airliner carrying a Sony executive.
So far, there is no specific evidence to link these episodes with last month’s suspected malware attacks on Sony’s movie division.
The current episode does not appear to have exposed any corporate or customer data.
However, one expert on Friday said that the Lizard Squad group is capable of serious disruption.
“They’re well-practiced and, from what I see, they’ve got the capability to take down a lot of things,” said Dan Holden, director of security research for Arbor Networks, a cyberdefense company based in Burlington, Massachusetts.
He added that little is known about the group or where its members are based.
“Their cause is a little bit oddball,” Holden said, adding that the group appears to be motivated primarily by a desire for visibility and “lulz” — Internet slang for laughs.
Holden said he recently described them on his blog as “hacktivists,” or online political activists, until the group contacted him and asked to be called “cyberterrorists.”
Holden said the attacks did cause economic damage to firms.
“It’s certainly costing money all the way around to defend against these attacks,” he said, adding that Sony might also face the ire of customers whose new consoles would not work on Christmas Day.
Lizard Squad’s claimed attack on Sony last summer has also prompted speculation that it might be involved in last month’s suspected hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which the US FBI has blamed on North Korea.
While experts say that it is possible that the North Korean government worked with independent hackers, Holden said that Lizard Squad’s Twitter accounts appeared to applaud the Internet outage that afflicted North Korea this week.
“It’s totally speculative,” he said of suggestions that Lizard Squad might be involved in the Sony Pictures attack.
Meanwhile on Friday, someone using a Lizard Squad Twitter account said the group was shifting its attention to a widely used Internet encryption service called Tor.
Later, a Tor spokeswoman said the service was responding to an attack, but did not expect any “performance effects.”
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