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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Tech News > Hacker group Lizard Squad taken down by Finest Squad, police

Hacker group Lizard Squad taken down by Finest Squad, police
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NewsPoster
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Dec 16, 2014, 11:03 PM
 
Since August, a hacker group calling itself the Lizard Squad -- self-described as a handful of 'guys with too much free time on their hands' -- have been entertaining themselves by spoiling other people's fun. Primarily, they've been doing this by attacking online video game services and knocking them offline. An opposing "white hat" group of network security researchers have now exposed members of the Lizard Squad group, leading to the arrest of three members, some of whom had also been involved in bomb threats and other domestic terrorism.



The white-hat hacker group, known as "Finest Squad," was formed with a goal to expose Lizard Squad and keep online gaming services running through the holiday season. After their first series of online attacks, the members of the Lizard Squad decided to branch out into bomb threats -- delaying an American Airlines flight carrying John Smedley, the president of Sony Online Entertainment. This caused the FBI to get involved, but Lizard Squad didn't seem worried -- as it said the FBI had "[zero] physical evidence."

The group went quiet for a while, and returned early this month, taking down the Playstation network, and for a time it was suspected to be a part of the Guardians of Peace operation against Sony Entertainment. Lizard Squad announced that they intended to be the "next-generation Grinch," and keep gaming services down through Christmas.

During that time, the Finest Squad group was apparently communicating with Twitter's legal department about the group's message origins, and separately investigating what tools were used for the DDoS attacks. On December 6, the Finest Squad twitter account announced a breakthrough, and began tweeting IP addresses for the Lizard Squad's servers. Information continued to be revealed the rest of the day and through the week, including comments about Lizard Squad's "methodologies.".

This was quickly followed by photos and personal information about Lizard Squad members. On December 9, Finest Squad posted that one member of the group had been arrested, and linked to a Polk County, Florida Sheriff's Department press release about the arrest of a "17-year-old male suspect in Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada" who was also connected to three incidents of faked bomb-threats against a local High School and a private home.

As of this week, Finest Squad has celebrated three arrests. The Lizard Squad posted a message on its site indicating that it was disbanding following the arrests.
( Last edited by NewsPoster; Dec 17, 2014 at 12:03 AM. )
     
tundaman
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Dec 30, 2014, 06:51 AM
 
You can get away with a terrorist bomb attack, but don't mess with people games!
     
   
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