PhantomSquad Hackers Begin Their Xmas DDoS Attacks By Taking Down EA Servers (softpedia.com) 127
An anonymous reader writes: The hacking crew was not kidding about their Christmas DDoS attacks on Xbox & PSN. This morning the group started warmup attacks on the EA network, taking it down for 3 hours. The attacks were severe enough to take down the network completely, and EA issued apologies on its Twitter account. Phantom Squad is now carrying out DDoS attacks on PSN. Users started reporting outages in small areas around the world.
Refresh my memory (Score:5, Interesting)
Whats the goal? Is to just be pricks?
Re:Refresh my memory (Score:5, Insightful)
The DDOS attacks will continue until network infrastructure prevents it.
I think this group wants a name for themselves, and that may be the end of it, but who knows. The point isn't to ask why the rain falls- it's to wonder why we can't build a roof.
Re: Refresh my memory (Score:1)
Pretty sure they have roofs capable of stopping the rain.
A bunch of fuckwits turning up with water cannons is a different story.
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This is not *entirely* true. Well, it might be true. Way back in the 1990s, I answered the door completely naked and it was Jehovah's Witnesses. I'd just gotten out of the shower and I heard the knock on the door. I told them I was naked and that I'd get dressed but that they could come in. The two old ladies came in, probably saw my butt as I went down the hall, and waited patiently for me.
I spent a few months studying with them because I knew nothing about their religion and was curious. They were aware t
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Customers pay for a product and get it? That sounds like a business plan. What we have now is "customers pay for a product and don't get it".
Build the roof.
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A group of anonymous people want a name for themselves?
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If they didn't, they wouldn't be named PhantomSquad, and on twitter.
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Whats the goal? Is to just be pricks?
What else are you going to do from mom's basement? Especially when the girl you've never actually talked to has gone to visit relatives and you turned off her phone?
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This is pretty sexist. It can be a girl in mom's basement that is doing this too!
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We only know the target is a girl, we know nothing about the originator. For all you know, the originator was a girl in her mom's basement all along! What are you, homophobic?
Re:Refresh my memory (Score:5, Insightful)
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They're just trying to inflate their sense of self-importance, and calling them hackers as this article does helps accomplish that. Just like terrorists, the only way to stop these assholes is to stop giving them the spotlight (unless it is to mock them). Either call them what they are -- script kiddies -- or just don't talk about them at all. Even if they manage to DDOS your favorite game server, in the bigger picture they've accomplished nothing at all. Get up, stretch your legs, find something else to do and ignore them. It's what they deserve.
^ This, too many people call these Dumb A's "hackers". DDOS attacks are not "hacking" anything. Just some punks looking for their 2 mins of fame. To my knowledge (limited) these types of attacks can’t be prevented, so it’s not even a matter that they are "exposing" anything that can be upgraded. It would be one thing if it was a decrypting issue where customer data was being hacked (PSN network hack years ago), these guys are just A-Holes.
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To prove that anarchist pajamas-in-Mom's-basement types can be more antisocial than Scrooge and the Grinch, perhaps. Otherwise, I can't even begin to guess at what bright flame of sub-genius decided this would be a good idea.
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Same motivation as any other vandal or bully: losers wanting to impose their will, the only way they know how. Straight-up male-primate shit.
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Thankfully women never try to impose their will with the only way they know how. Only males.
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they do it to gain females, or to gain power
Ummm, isn't that what I said?
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>Whats the goal? Is to just be pricks?
They are attention whores. I've been referring to them as lizard squad in hopes it will piss them off.
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Are you talking about EA or the hackers?
I'm... having trouble knowing who to root for here. Is there any way they can both lose?
Re:Refresh my memory (Score:4, Insightful)
Though I did hear a rumor that they were also doing it to demonstrate their attack system so they can sell/rent it to people.
There are many ways to demonstrate something like that, but of course, they chose to do it in a gratuitously mean fashion that will piss of lots of people.
Other than that, they're just trying to wave their dicks around. Pretty much a failure at impressing anyone, it's not like this is a new accomplishment or anything, they are just doing the same thing lots of people have done before them, so their just a bunch of wannabe griefers with little to no talent.
Re: Refresh my memory (Score:1)
If I park my car in the middle of the interstate I can disrupt traffic too, doesn't take any brains to do it tho. Just like their ddos.
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Anger, probably. Two time worst company, barely lost a threepeat. EA has improved, but not enough.
http://consumerist.com/2014/03... [consumerist.com]
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You can't even make it through the summary? The hacks have targeted multiple companies/platforms in the past. Their targets have nothing to do with brand/corporate reputation.
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Do I have to explain why Sony is bad? Here of all places you retarded piece of shit?
Yes, you do need to explain why Sony is bad. Sony BMG? Different company with no real association with Playstation. OtherOS? An "extra" that was never advertised and was not officially supported. So, yes, please explain you retarded piece of shit.
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Stop making excuses for these vermin. EA aren't bothered, they don't lose money, they already have sales income. It's the consumer that's getting fucked by these sad tossers. They're the ones losing their gaming time, perhaps the only period they have available after working seven days a week doing shitty jobs to make ends meet. Millions of people are being denied access to products and services they purchased because a few dweebs run bots for the LOLs.
So go and do one yourself, faggot.
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Whats the goal? Is to just be pricks?
Their goal is probably to be pricks and make a name for themselves. However, they also are performing a valuable service: reminding Joe WhyShouldIcareAboutDRM that their gaming experience is subject to the whim of game servers, possibly even for offline games, and they will be unable to play should the game company decide to drop support or get overloaded.
Non-DRM games are immune to this. Note that for some games, the only non-DRM versions are the pirated ones.
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Non-DRM games are immune to this.
Oh please.
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Mooslims say MOO! MOO! Moo say the mooslims!
Spoiled Little Children (Score:3)
Maybe at some point in their lives, if they ever grow up, they'll learn that just because you can doesn't mean you should
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There are many people who have grown up that could also follow that advice.
"I know we're in a drought but let's just plant more water thirsty trees and drain the aquifer."
"Let's release these GM insects. Nothing could possibly go wrong." (Heard on a science podcast that they are getting close to doing this. And the GM crops have been so successful in reducing herbicide use.)
They do realize that if you take away (Score:2)
peoples entertainment those people will not side with their fill in "I' got teenage angst against this" issues?
Live attack map (Score:5, Interesting)
Just look at Norse Attack Map
Lots o NTPf traffic from China
http://map.norsecorp.com/ [norsecorp.com]
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Fascinating to watch that. I wonder what mechanism they are using. I suspect that they have found a weakness in Beijing Hsoft which allows them to use their NTP servers to amplify.
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"Beijing Hsoft" appears to be a commercial software sub-licensing agency.
But maybe there's nothing special about that one. There's no such thing as computer security in China. Plenty of old, never-updated boxes running Windows XP and nobody gives a damn. Of course any DDoS team worthy of their moisture are using zombie boxes in that country, and probably Hsoft simply has the combination of best infrastructure and worst security practice.
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No not a weakness but a poorly configured NTP server. They should be either running a later version of NTP where this amplification method was fixed or having their system configured to require a nonce. That way spoofing wont work.
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So the lesson is, we will continue to attack you until this other company fixes their server. Wow.
In another story, my neighbor is shitting on my lawn because their plumbing is broke. Court of public opinion finds me at fault.
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Don't expect anything but the thinnest veneer of an excuse as to why they're doing this. They're going this because they're angsty teenage males with lots of testosterone and no power, so this is how they vent their frustration at the unfairness of the (first) world. Taking down a multi-billion-dollar international corporation's network is undoubtedly a power trip for them.
It's really nothing more than digital vandalism. I wish the media would label it as such rather than "hacking".
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I would, but it appears to be broken. Could someone, ironically, be DDOSing it?
as they should (Score:3, Funny)
EA issue apologies on its Twitter account
it's about time! have you seen what they do to game series'? now what's all this business about DDoS attacks? ;)
Go online to play an offline game (Score:4, Interesting)
If it wasn't for validation servers for strictly offline games, eg. The Sims, this wouldn't be half as bad. It's when people don't get to play an offlline game because a server somewhere is down or messed up that things get ugly.
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And things should get ugly. People should be pissed at the game companies that require online for single player.
The correct solution (Score:3)
I got in trouble at work once when I proposed a solution to deal with the massive number of attacks we were receiving from China. I said, "block China completely and call it a day." It seems I was "culturally insensitive."
Re:The correct solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on the site.
If you're running a local e-commerce site that sells only to a single state or county rather than the entire country, let alone to China, blocking China at the gate doesn't really seem that bad of a business move.
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When 99% of an attack are coming from a single nation's ip addresses, it makes sense to block them, if only temporarily.
not the first time, when will MSFT fix it? (Score:2)
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PS may be a-holes, but they pointing out an unfixed problem.
I'm sorry, but how is it a problem? If they never did the attack, then the network would never go down. At least not go down because of the servers being hit with orders of magnitude more requests than what they're designed for.
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Not specifically a MSFT problem. It will happen on any NTP server that will respond to a monlist request without first requiring a nonce verification of the senders IP address.
Send this command ntpdc –c monlist 1xx.xxx.xxx.xx9 (where x is your target NTP server) and you will get a much larger response. Combine that with a spoofed return address and you have your DDOS attach vector.
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Ban general purpose computers now.
Yes, that seems entirely reasonable and practical.
The idiots found a hammer (Score:2)
That's all this is, no different than giving a mentally retarded asshole a hammer and directing them to a store that sells fine china.
"Hurr durr, lookit me, guys, I can break stuff, lololol! Wow, ain't I kool? Lookit mah leet skillz!"
What these little shits need is a good ass-kicking, perhaps to the point of hospitalization.
They didn't bother with Simpsons Tapped Out (Score:1)
Microsoft Windows Xmas DDoS attacks .. (Score:2)