Last week HR reported about a hacking group “Phantom Squad” that is planning ruin holidays for the gamers. It looks like the group has started working on turning their plans into reality — However, another group known as SkidNP has also joined the attacks and shut down Steam servers.
EA Servers:
The group Phantom Squad has targeted EA (Electronic Arts) server with very severe attacks and a number of users of reported problems in accessing the PSN servers.
EA also confirmed the attacks via twitter and apologized for any inconveniences.
“You may have some difficulty launching games, applications, or online features. Our engineers are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, and we thank you for your patience.” One of the tweets said.
Apologies for the inconvenience. We're working hard to resolve log in and connection issues which are currently affecting many game titles.
— EA Help (@EAHelp) December 24, 2015
EA is currently experiencing an outage. EA games, services & support may be impacted. We’re working to resolve as fast as possible.
— EA Help (@EAHelp) December 24, 2015
Right after the announcement from EA, the hacking group stopped the attacks and also announced the attacks on their twitter account. The attack lasted 3 hours and jolted the EA server badly.
The tweets from hackers can’t be posted here as twitter has already suspended their account.
But, this is not the first attack from the group previously they attacked all the popular games these days i.e. The Old Republic, Grand Theft Auto 5, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Though, these attacks were small and seemed to have been carried out for testing purposes only, but results acquired from those attacks can be used for a bigger attack later on.
Just a few days back the Phantom Squad joined hands with VandaSec and PhantomSec making the group much stronger.
So, for gamers, a difficult time has already started, just like last year when LizardSquad launched DDoS attacks on Xbox and PSN and users were not able to enjoy gaming during the holiday.
It would be interesting to see how leading gaming service providers cope with these attacks in upcoming days as this is a just a start and these hacking groups might come hard as the holiday season progresses.
Steam Servers:
The group targeting Steam server goes by the handle of SkidNP. Earlier today, gamers using steam service tweeted that they are facing a worldwide outage.
Here’s a tweet from Steam Status twitter account:
08:34 PST ⚠️ Seeing major Steam connection manager servers downtime (at least 99% down)
See https://t.co/m0NlDb8Z4P #Steam
— Steam Status (Unofficial) (@SteamStatus) December 25, 2015
Here are Steam users on Twitter angry over the outage:
Steam is down: https://t.co/xGGpnyq2Yi
— Raniery 🐱🍪✏️ (@RanieryNardy) December 25, 2015
https://twitter.com/CarnageArceor/status/680404701725118464
Steam client connections are down. PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/stLSoOH5ZS
— R3w1nd 👀 (@_R3w1nd_) December 25, 2015
Just a few minutes ago a Twitter handle from Phantom Squad also tweeted about Steam attack however it is unclear if the squad is collaborating with SkidNP on this attack or not.
Stay tuned for more on this issue.
