The group claiming credit for the cyberattack that tanked PlayStation and Xbox online gaming servers for several days after Christmas is taking credit in another headline-grabbing hack — the one against Sony Pictures in November.
During an interview published Monday by The Washington Post, a leader of the self-dubbed “Lizard Squad” hacking group told the paper that the group gave multiple stolen Sony logins to the Guardians of Peace — the group that devastated Sony’s network in November and made off with a cache of employee information, executives’ emails and unreleased films. The self-described “GOP” also forced Sony to limit the Dec. 25 film debut of “The Interview” in response to a terrorist threat against theaters screening the film.
The Lizard Squad administrator, who identified himself as Ryan Cleary (though not the same Ryan Cleary convicted of hacking CIA computers as part of the hacker group LulzSec) said Lizard Squad — which has claimed credit for previous days-long gaming server outages — targeted PlayStation and Xbox to expose Sony and Microsoft’s lack of concern over the security of users’ private data.
“It tells you how much money they’ve put into securing their systems,” Cleary told The Post in a private online chatroom. “Not having people take down your business critical systems like this should be one of your top security priorities. Which it clearly isn’t. We told them almost a month before that we’d do this. And yet we had no difficulties dropping them.”
Cleary verified his association with the group by posting a tweet from a Twitter account closely associated with @LizardSquad, which forced the diversion and grounding of a plane carrying Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley in August by tweeting a bomb threat. At the same time, @LizardSquad claimed to be behind a then-current global PlayStation Network and Sony online music server outage. (RELATED: Hackers Attack PlayStation Network In The Name Of ISIS, Ground Sony Exec’s Plane With Bomb Threat)
Cleary said Lizard Squad didn’t play a “large part” in the Sony Pictures hack, and only provided “a couple” Sony logins for the “initial attack.” Cleary said the group “came by” the logins themselves.
Analyses of the hack against Sony by multiple cybersecurity experts over the last two weeks reveal Sony logins hardcoded into the virus that torpedoed the network were an integral part of its success. (RELATED: More Evidence From Sony Hack Leads Away From North Korea, Suggests Insider)
Cleary said the group is also currently conducting an attack against the anonymous Internet browsing network Tor, and that Lizard Squad was currently in control of 50 percent of the network and 70 percent of its exit nodes. Tor confirmed they were working to remove the nodes controlled by the attackers.
According to Cleary, most of Lizard Squad is based in Europe and as a result, isn’t very concerned about investigations into the attacks by the FBI.
Lizard Squad recently tweeted they were no longer attacking PSN or Xbox Live, and Sony confirmed Sunday that the PlayStation Network was back online.