Three major hacking groups who have been launching competitive cyber attacks have agreed to a truce after the latest one took it “a notch too far”.On Saturday Sky News spoke to one hacker who said he was part of the group known as Lizard Squad, which attacked Sony and Microsoft’s gaming platforms on Christmas Day.
Microsoft’s Xbox live which has more than 40 million subscribers was disabled for around 24hrs whilst some of the 110 million users of Sony’s Playstation Network were still experiencing problems on Sunday afternoon.
In an internet video uploaded to YouTube last night, Lizard Squad members debated with rival hackers from the Anonymous group and Finest Squad group, along with controversial internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom.
Lizard Squad was criticised for attacking gamers.
One hacker from the Anonymous group said: “We care about the status of Xbox and Playstation, and we want to make sure that gamers stay connected for as long as possible.
Kim Dotcom, who reportedly offered Lizard Squad hackers vouchers for his online cloud storage service to get them to stop their Christmas day attack, accused them of undermining the good work of hackers around the world.
“I think that this attack on Christmas and on kids around the world, the hacker image has suffered,” he said.
“I think we should talk about the impact that this attack had on kids worldwide and I want to make sure that we leave this call with some conclusions and agreements that this type of thing won’t happen again.
“Hacking is one thing but taking down an entire gaming network when people have just got their Christmas gifts is taking it a notch too far.”
Lizard Squad hacker ‘Ryan’, who is the same hacker that spoke to Sky News, said he understood the point but said it was unfair to label his hacking group as being completely negative.
He claims that the type of attack used to take down the networks can, and should, be protected against.
He admitted to doing it to amuse himself but also said that his group were highlighting a lack of security.
In the online video, Lizard Squad hackers said they would not be attacking Playstation or Xbox networks again.
The rivalry between the groups was also addressed by Kim Dotcom.
“There’s no point in hackers attacking hackers, we have a US government that’s spying on the world, we have internet freedom under attack,” he said.
The video ends with a ‘ceasefire’ between the three big groups being declared.
However one insider told Sky News that he doesn’t believe it will last long, saying: “I think they like to cause drama too much to stop for a long time. The fact is that the get bored and so I think more hacks should be expected soon.”
