Blizzard, PlayStation Network, and more under wide DDoS attack [Update: FBI now investigating]

A group of hackers have come forward and claimed responsibility for ongoing DDoS attack.

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Update 6: All appears to be up and running. No further problems have been reported with PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, Battle.net, or any of the other services affected. We will continue to monitor the situation here at Shacknews and will report on any further attacks.

Update 5: Battle.net has been hit once again, according to Blizzard customer service. The attack was foreshadowed when Lizard Squad pointed to a Twitch user playing Hearthstone. Minutes later, the group targeted a Dota 2 stream. A portion of Dota 2 servers have been affected, but there does not appear to be widespread outage at this time.

Update 4: Lizard Squad has now set their sights on Xbox Live. Xbox Support confirms that service has been affected.

Update 3:  A Sony Online Entertainment representative has issued a statement to Shacknews in regards to SOE President John Smedley having his flight diverted over a fake bomb threat. The statement reads "I can confirm that at this time the FBI is handling this directly." The rep added that no specifics could be offered, as this has now become a matter of national security.

Update 2:  An update has been posted on PlayStation.Blog confirming that no personal information has been stolen in these attacks. The DDoS attacks are persisting and the team is looking to resolve the matter as soon as possible.

Update: Sony has acknowledged the attacks on Twitter.

In addition, since the time of this post, Sony Online Entertainment's servers have been hit, as well. SOE President John Smedley confirmed the attack early Sunday morning.

The attacks have even gone beyond the realm of DDoS, as Lizard Squad targeted Smedley's San Diego-bound flight with a phony bomb threat. Smedley's flight was diverted to Phoenix for security reasons.

We will continue to issue updates as they come in.

Original story: Several gaming servers have been at the receiving end of DDoS attacks over the past several hours. Blizzard's Battle.net servers, Riot's League of Legends, Grinding Gear Games' Path of Exile, and PlayStation Network are among those under attack by a group of hackers calling themselves Lizard Squad.

Several tweets have gone up throughout Saturday evening, in which Lizard Squad has taken responsibility for the attacks. The group started with Blizzard's servers that include Hearthstone, Diablo 3, World of Warcraft and others. The group quickly spread to League of Legends and Path of Exile before deciding to spread their terror to PlayStation Network. The latter's outage is not related to the scheduled maintenance set to begin Monday morning.

The situation is ongoing, as the various staffs work hard to get the servers active again.

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

From The Chatty
  • reply
    August 24, 2014 2:42 AM

    Ozzie Mejia posted a new article, Blizzard, PlayStation Network, and more under wide DDoS attack.

    A group of hackers have come forward and claimed responsibility for ongoing DDoS attack.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 3:02 AM

      To raise awareness of their imprisoned brothers?

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 5:20 AM

        Until the Asian Dawn are released there will be no breaks in the DDoS!

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 6:59 AM

        bawahahah... I thought the same thing!

        • reply
          August 24, 2014 7:01 AM

          d'oh. reply went to the wroong "Asian Dawn" comment.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 3:04 AM

      But why

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 3:52 AM

      DDoS or not... lvl 45 Marauder in Path of Exile on Cruel!

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 3:55 AM

      Ugh, I hate these people.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 4:04 AM

      dammit i was going to watch netflix before going to bed, uuugh

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 5:17 PM

        just fyi i found out after this that you dont need to be signed into PSN to go on to netflix

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 4:35 AM

      Well, they're on it...
      http://www.jp.playstation.com/psn/state2.html
      One of those fun moments to be on-call for server issues. Sunday evening, could be watching the GP. Oh well.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 6:28 AM

      Fuck those morons.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 6:43 AM

      WTF go DDOS blackwater or something useful.

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 7:00 AM

        Well said. Bunch of tw@ts, they're just pissing off gamers. Who do they think they are? Leland Yee's army?

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 8:47 AM

        what I don't get is the internal DDOS stuff. while our script kiddies DDOS our own stuff, china is actively hacking medical records. why don't they up their game and DDOS china? why is the chinese internet topology so impervious, and the US system is still over a barrel?

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 8:13 AM

      i guess the DotA2 lag is something else

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 8:27 AM

      The Revenge Of Phil Fish.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 11:53 AM

      LOLz

      CEO Kaz Hirai
      ‏@KazHiraiCEO
      Out now on PS4: “PSN Outage: Remastered.” It is a remake of the classic PSN Outage of 2011, except now in glorious 1080p and 60FPS

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 12:06 PM

        Pshh, this outage is only in 900p!

        • reply
          August 24, 2014 12:08 PM

          It was an artistic decision.

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 12:34 PM

        why is this twitter account so funny. is it cause i can see kaz hirai actually saying it

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 12:11 PM

      fuck man. i just want to play some nba2k14 :(

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 12:14 PM

      so the hackers reported there was a bomb on Smedley's plane and it got diverted. This is pretty messed up

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 12:15 PM

      UPDATE: Sony says they're on the case.
      https://twitter.com/AskPlayStation/status/503578878707630080

      Also, SOE came out early this morning and said they were hit, too.
      https://twitter.com/j_smedley/status/503511824256348161

      Lizard Squad also tweeted in a fake bomb threat to American Airlines.
      https://twitter.com/LizardSquad/status/503595025301635073
      It apparently worked, because John Smedley's flight to San Diego has been diverted.
      https://twitter.com/j_smedley/status/503618851741790208

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 12:40 PM

        blargh. this is so fucking aggravating. why can't our militarized police force be used on these script kiddies. weapons free, too. no worries. further, I'll have the press out at the bar with drinks, so the police can use "enhanced" techniques against these hacking pieces of shit

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 12:38 PM

      this sucks just tried ps4 need for speed rivels and wasnt working cause of this attak

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 12:43 PM

      I just want to connect my Battle.net account to PSN so I can get my legendary doohicky. :(

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 5:21 PM

        I still haven't gotten mine. :(

        I tried a few times this weekend. I got the second account thing put it, it says its successful, continues to do nothing from that point.

        Right now I'm more peeved that I'm not getting any legendary presents! I'm still using the first one I got!

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 3:04 PM

      I really dont see how this amuses anyone? if you want to do something, make it something useful

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 3:05 PM

      UPDATE: I reached out to SOE and they have confirmed that this the FBI is now investigating. They cannot comment further, as this is now a matter of national security.

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 3:06 PM

        In about 6 months to a year those people will absolutely regret they did this.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 4:06 PM

      UPDATE: They've hit Xbox Live. Many users are reporting that they can't sign in.
      https://twitter.com/LizardSquad/status/503667531152752642
      http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-live-status

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 4:49 PM

      For all the data and such NSA collects, those fuckers sure seem useless right now.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 5:19 PM

      Oh is this why I can't log into Steam?

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 5:27 PM

      Did just linked to shacknews in his tweet.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 5:43 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 6:16 PM

      They're targeting a Twitch user right now. Get ready for Battle.net to possibly get hit again.

      https://twitter.com/LizardSquad/status/503710806593138688

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 6:25 PM

      My Hearthstone game just got super slow, said opponent left, then I got disconnected.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 6:27 PM

      1. Eff these guys. I just started playing diablo 3 again and right as my friend and I spawn the rift boss, we get booted out of the game. ~15min queue. =(

      2. Eff blizzard for making diablo 3 always on.

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 6:49 PM

        I have been playing Diablo 3 all night (offline) thanks to the console version. I do wish Hearthstone was less affected though.

        • reply
          August 24, 2014 7:28 PM

          Yeah...console here with the PS4, but I can't get on to play with a friend because PSN is down. What is the reason behind this douchebaggery?

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 6:32 PM

      Hoo boy, looks like Steam is next! Brace yourselves!

      https://twitter.com/LizardSquad/status/503716034147131392

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 6:46 PM

        They hit the streamer, but it looks like they were only able to hit a small portion of Dota 2 servers. No widespread outage yet.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 6:43 PM

      diablo 3 for pc currently has a 40 minute queue. ugh.

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 6:51 PM

        down to 7 mins now. moving fast.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 6:45 PM

      Can anyone explain in simple terms why these companies are still unable to handle/block DDoS attacks?

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 6:47 PM

        From HowStuffWorks:

        http://computer.howstuffworks.com/zombie-computer3.htm

        Once an army begins a DDoS attack against a victim system, there are few things the system administrator can do to prevent catastrophe. He could choose to limit the amount of traffic allowed on his server, but this restricts legitimate Internet connections and zombies alike. If the administrator can determine the origin of the attacks, he can filter the traffic. Unfortunately, since many zombie computers disguise (or spoof) their addresses, this isn't always easy to do.

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 6:49 PM

        The ddos attack almost always looks like real traffic at first -- it can be tricky to figure out what is real traffic and what isn't at first.

      • reply
        August 24, 2014 6:49 PM

        when thousands of computers are attacking a server,you are just wasting time trying to block single IP addresses. and sometimes they make it difficult to figure out what traffic is legit and what isnt.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 6:45 PM

      I wish these guys would stick to stuff like hacking TV stations in order to watch The Outer Limits.

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 6:59 PM

      people are getting their shots in before they have to go back to school in september

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 7:00 PM

      3 min even to log into bnet

    • reply
      August 24, 2014 9:39 PM

      I'm going to laugh so hard when these stupid kids are facing a decade in prison. They think this is just a funny game, that you can DDOS and call in bomb threats and shit just for kicks and there aren't going to be any consequences. They're about to get a taste of the real world and it's not going to go down easy.

      The bleeding hearts will feel sorry for them but I don't. The FBI will find these idiots and then they will get what they deserve.

    • P90 legacy 10 years
      reply
      August 25, 2014 12:17 AM

      This isn't a hack and they aren't hackers. I wish news sites would stop calling it / them that.
      This is nothing more than some losers living in a basement somewhere downloading a program and running it. Not even remotely close to a hack.

      • reply
        August 25, 2014 9:33 AM

        You are correct in that it's not hacking. But it's also not just downloading a program. What they are doing is a little more sophisticated than downloading AoLHaXoRs.exe

    • reply
      August 25, 2014 7:47 AM

      Cue the class action suits by all the poor poor gamers who couldn't play online for ONE day. I really hope I'm wrong but I doubt it.

    • reply
      August 25, 2014 7:34 PM

      I know earlier in the week there were issues with Arenanet and the servers for Guild Wars 2, kept hearing that Lizzard Squad was claiming those too, but never found any hard evidence in their tweets. There were just too many to look through.

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