Lizard Squad went too far: selling attack services, members arrested

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If there is a keyword in the technology circle in December 2014, "hacker" is probably the most eye-catching one. The situation of Sony's hacking is still unclear, but it has made "The Interview" a joke that may be drowned in the year-end blockbusters popular. The entertainment and technology circles gossips involved in the Sony Pictures hacking almost occupied the headlines of relevant media in December.

Compared to the hack of Sony Pictures, the actions of Lizard Squad did not attract much attention from the public, but those who pay a little attention to games and hacker circles may be more interested in this hacker group with a strong "middle school temperament". This Christmas, under the attack of the hacker group Lizard Squad, both Microsoft's Xbox Live and Sony's PSN fell.

Before this hack, Lizard Squad had organized several large-scale operations. At the beginning of last year, they attacked the servers of Blizzard and Sony; a few months ago, they hacked the website of the Vatican; and recently, they launched a cyber attack on North Korea.

Regarding these hacker attacks, Vinnie Omari, a member of the group, said that the simplest reason is that they are just making fun of others. At the same time, they also want to expose the incompetence of Microsoft and Sony and prove that those who claim to stop them are all liars. After they attacked the game services of Microsoft and Sony, Kim Dotcom, the founder of the cloud storage service Mega and a well-known hacker, tried to mediate, but Lizard Squad did not stop the attack after receiving the benefits given by Kim Dotcom.

After this childish prank attack, Lizard Squad started selling DDoS network attack services online, calling them "stress testers." However, Business Insider called them "Attacks As A Service (AaaS)."

This service, called Lizard Stresser, can be used to attack competitor websites. Even though Lizard Squad said that this service is limited to testing the purchaser's own websites and servers, they also said that users need to be responsible for their own use of this service. If users use DDoS attacks on others, then Lizard Squad will not be held responsible. Lizard Stresser's services are divided into 8 types, and the price ranges from US$6 to US$130 per month depending on the intensity and time.

Although Lizard Squad issued its own disclaimer, it is obvious that selling such a dangerous service is inappropriate, so Lizard Squad has been widely criticized and questioned. In addition, the payment system provided by Lizard Squad does not support VPNs, and service buyers need to find other ways to hide their identity and location information. In other words, it is actually dangerous for attackers who try to use this service to attack others.

After despising Microsoft and Sony, the arrogant Lizard Squad aroused the dissatisfaction of another hacker group Anonymous and attracted the attention of the FBI.

Earlier, Vinnie Omari was interviewed by Sky News in the UK as a "computer security expert" and talked about the Lizard Squad incident. However, someone found the real personal information of this mysterious person and pointed out that Vinnie Omari was a member of this hacker group, and his accomplice was a 16-year-old Dutch boy, Julius Kivimäki.

As you can imagine, the British Crime Unit immediately searched Vinnie Omari's home on Monday and arrested him on suspicion of making false statements and violating the Computer Misuse Act. However, he was released on bail, while Julius Kivimäki, who goes by the alias "Ryan", is still in prison.