Lizard Squad

Lizard Squad
FormationAugust 18, 2014
TypeHacking
Membership
7

Lizard Squad was a black hat hacking group, mainly known for their claims of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks[1] primarily to disrupt gaming-related services.

On September 3, 2014, Lizard Squad seemingly announced that it had disbanded[2] only to return later on, claiming responsibility for a variety of attacks on prominent websites. The organization at one point participated in the Darkode hacking forums and shared hosting with them.[3][4]

On April 30, 2016, Cloudflare published a blog post detailing how cyber criminals using this group's name were issuing random threats of carrying out DDoS attacks. Despite these threats, Cloudflare claim they failed to carry through with a single attack.[5][6] As a result of this, the British National Fraud Intelligence Bureau issued an alert warning businesses not to comply with ransom messages threatening DDoS attacks.[7][8]

  1. ^ "How A Hacker Gang Literally Saved Christmas For Video Game Players Everywhere". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 17 January 2015. Retrieved 25 December 2014.
  2. ^ "Lizard Squad Hacker Collective Announces Disbanding". Softpedia News. Archived from the original on 29 June 2020. Retrieved 26 December 2014.
  3. ^ MalwareTech (December 2014). "Darkode - Ode to Lizard Squad (The Rise and Fall of a Private Community)". Archived from the original on 21 July 2015. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  4. ^ Buncombe, August (15 July 2015). "Darkode: FBI shuts down notorious online forum and cracks 'cyber hornet's nest of criminal hackers'". The Independent. Archived from the original on 14 June 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  5. ^ Paine, Justin (29 April 2016). "Lizard Squad Ransom Threats: New Name, Same Faux Armada Collective M.O." CloudFlare Blog. CloudFlare, Inc. Archived from the original on 14 June 2020. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  6. ^ Ashok, India (April 30, 2016). "Armada Collective impersonators now posing as Lizard Squad in DDoS scam". International Business Times. Archived from the original on 15 June 2020. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  7. ^ Russon, Mary-Ann (May 3, 2016). "Fake 'Lizard Squad' DDoS demands hit UK businesses spurring police warning". International Business Times. Archived from the original on 30 June 2020. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  8. ^ "Online extortion demands affecting businesses". Action Fraud. 29 April 2016. Archived from the original on 30 August 2018. Retrieved 17 May 2016.