Hacker collective Lulzsec on Tuesday claimed responsibility for cyber attacks on services for online games Minecraft from Mojang and CCP's EVE Online, as well as popular gaming website The Escapist.
The moves against these targets are the latest in a string of reported cyber attacks against video game makers. Such attacks have gained notoriety in the wake of the major security breach against Sony's PlayStation Network in April.
The new Lulzsec attacks - apparently DDoS attacks that overwhelm a server with requests - come shortly after the group claimed responsibility for breaching Bethesda Softworks' game servers.
"We just wiped out the login server for Eve Online, and it accidentally took their website out at the same time," Lulzsec's Twitter feed stated Tuesday afternoon.
Minutes prior, the group said it took down the website for The Escapist: "We're firing at Escapist Magazine with around 0.4% of our total ammunition. Let's see what their admins are made of - game is on, folks."
And most recently on Tuesday, the group said it knocked out Minecraft's servers. "Just sunk the Minecraft login server, looks like their website also got hit from overkill: http://t.co/E3QnDYm not even firing at the site." The group later said Minecraft.net is now accessible but servers are "100 percent down."
On Twitter, the group, which calls itself "the world's leaders in high-quality entertainment at your expense," has dubbed today "#TitanicTakeoverTuesday."
Update: CCP Games released the following statement to Gamasutra:
At 17:00 GMT today, CCP became aware of a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) attack against the EVE Online cluster and web servers.
Immediately, these services were taken offline. As an added precaution, all of CCP's infrastructure was disconnected from the public Internet.
The CCP Security team is conducting a thorough investigation to determine exactly what happened and how, what the possible impact may be and, first and foremost, assuring that any personal information of our customers remains secure.
More information will be released as it’s available.
They don't give a shit about raising awareness to Internet security, they are taking calls to decide what their next target should be. Hell, they took down the escapist because of a forum topic where people were expressing their anger at the Bethesda attack. It's not about security, it's about silencing people.
They may actually go after Gamasutra based solely on this article for all we know.
This is why I could never get behind the hacker group Anonymous. Knowing that they were born from 4chan, what can only be called Mos Eisley of the Internet (no greater hive of scum and villainy), they were bound to have people who only want to hack so they can be assholes.
Plus, a DDoS attack isn't about security, it's about bandwidth. They're not actually hacking into Escapist's servers and stealing information. They're just sending a ton of requests and seeing if The Escapist has machines capable of handling all the information. That's why the site has been down on and off all day.
I haven't been happy with each of these attacks. I may not like Bethesda, but I don't want them hacked. Now they're striking against one of the greatest gaming websites around, and for what? "For teh lulz".
These are worthless members of society, and while I hate using such terms, they are bullies. They are throwing their collective weight around for nothing more than a stupid sense of superiority, and it's making everyone else miserable. If there were justice, better hackers would strike right back and ruin the lives of Lulzsec.
There's a theory out there that LulzSec split from Anonymous because that group began to be more focused on gains made from hacking. LulzSec, at least not yet, is just exposing bad security (and a bunch of porn users) for fun but not profit.
Their switchboard message sounds interesting, also. boingboing.net/assets/lulzline.mp3
@MTim Jones-- This is getting confirmed in a way according to Anon.
Something is happening in the groups, and in a way I think Anon is slowly declining while this group will be on the rise.
Anon's key difference is that if they hack, it is for a general injustice that should have been solved (and only if there was majority outrage about it, thus representing the "mass").
Lulzsec instead now determines what is "right" and "wrong", so now they are not the "mass" they are the minority. And as the minority with a lot of internet power, they are going to use it for personal gain instead of exposing change.
then it would be wise to start a company that exposes weaknesses in network rather than screwing up a companies web site and showing who does and who does not look at porn.
Just you wait and watch, Chris. When the United States decides it's time to start using military power in response to cyberattacks, these LulzSec guys aren't going to be safe for the ensuing years.
Believe me, all they are doing is encouraging Congress and the Pentagon to take more robust action against hackers.
This is having the opposite effect of their intentions.
Escapist got attacked because a bunch of reader flocked to the forum after the Bethesda hack and vented their frustrations at Lulzsec, so in response the group said (i paraphrase) "let's play a litte game" and hit them with a DDoS.
Check out the Lulzsec Twitter feed for more. And I'd probably keep the anti-Lulzsec comments here to a minimum. I really don't want Gamasutra going offline too.
From their twitter feed, they're taking requests for whom to hack next. A company called finfisher was apparently requested, and LulzSec obliged "because apparently they sell monitoring software to the government or some shit like that"...
Honestly? All this will do is cause the U.S. Military to get involved. It's just a matter of time before Congress goes "Ok, we've had enough. We're authorizing the CIA, FBI, NSA, and the DHS with all required powers to track down and capture/kill these hackers."
I don't think LulzSec will want a team of Force Recon Marines kicking their doors down.
If Robin Hood attacked the people he would not have lasted long nor become a legend. These hackers keep attacking services that affect the regular user, and they will not find a hole to hide behind. I expect more arrests to happen soon.
Ahh the golden age of hackers, soon hack attacks like these will push governments to put in place tracking services in place to crack down, resulting in lost of Internet freedoms for all. Too many high profile hack attacks and too many "Anonymous" hacker groups popping up at once, looks like somebody has an agenda.
These recent hack attacks are different from the previous ones in that they are very vocal, previously hackers just steal credit cards and keep it on the down low.. Now they flaunt their attacks, coincidentally this comes soon after the White House correlates hacking to terrorist actions.. hmm..
Ahh the golden age of hackers, soon hack attacks like these will push governments to put in place tracking services in place to crack down, resulting in lost of Internet freedoms for all. Too many high profile hack attacks and too many "Anonymous" hacker groups popping up at once, looks like somebody has an agenda."
Word is from Alex Jones' Infowars that the NSA is all ready tracking everything all the time all over the Internet. The NSA has the money, they have the people from MIT, they have the power. Basement nerds against the NSA? Yeah right. Not intelligent at all.
I also think you have a good point. The agenda is the world government taking over the Internet whole sale.
There's only one word to describe all this...immature. Of course, I'm sure we can come up with a whole bunch of single words that describe these events.
All these hackers think they are justified or there are purposes to their actions, but in the end, it's all meaningless.
My attempt at discussion board scarcasm has clearly failed. It was a joke (well, half -- I really don't want Gamasutra to get attacked) and it was lost in translation.
I'm all about hackers giving back to the community or fighting for freedom of information, etc.
But, taking down servers "because you can" instead of just pointing out the insecurities to this selection of companies that are pretty good at responding to their communities? Seriously?
There's a difference between a "good hack" -- one that does not harm the end users in any way, shape, or form and promotes awareness -- and a "bad hack." This is just mean.
I guess that's gonna be a great opportunity to pass some more cyber-security laws, to, you know, make us "safer" on the interwebs. That's all we are going to win with immature acts like that.
News should just stop reporting their crap. This group is all about the attention, and if you just give them attention they will continue to go about looking for attention. Stop giving them attention and they will get tired of it relatively quickly. These guys aren't like Anonymous who actually have ideals and goals to help create what they believe is a better society. LulzSec is just a bunch of attention whores. These are the guys who everyone hates on Xbox Live.
So people know, not that any necessarily care, but did some snooping on Anon. Take this with a grain of salt, BUT:
Well, according to some of the members, Lulzsec was basically a group that separated from Anon, and have been behind most of the major gaming hacks as of late. Whereas Anon stopped when it affected the customers more than anything, Lulzsec would continue regardless.
This is to my humble understanding, as these events have intrigued me since they've started.
These Lulsecz are hackers paid by the US Government and powers that be so the public opinion think of hackers as bad people, so they are backed and can justify when they create laws to persecute groups the likes of Anonymous or Wikileaks... sorry, was joking! :P
These hackers are starting to annoy a lot of folks. Nothing they are currently doing can be seen as positive. The worse case as suggested before is that governments produce some knee-jerk reaction or worse if hacking is seen as getting out of control.
They may actually go after Gamasutra based solely on this article for all we know.
Plus, a DDoS attack isn't about security, it's about bandwidth. They're not actually hacking into Escapist's servers and stealing information. They're just sending a ton of requests and seeing if The Escapist has machines capable of handling all the information. That's why the site has been down on and off all day.
I haven't been happy with each of these attacks. I may not like Bethesda, but I don't want them hacked. Now they're striking against one of the greatest gaming websites around, and for what? "For teh lulz".
These are worthless members of society, and while I hate using such terms, they are bullies. They are throwing their collective weight around for nothing more than a stupid sense of superiority, and it's making everyone else miserable. If there were justice, better hackers would strike right back and ruin the lives of Lulzsec.
Their switchboard message sounds interesting, also. boingboing.net/assets/lulzline.mp3
Something is happening in the groups, and in a way I think Anon is slowly declining while this group will be on the rise.
Anon's key difference is that if they hack, it is for a general injustice that should have been solved (and only if there was majority outrage about it, thus representing the "mass").
Lulzsec instead now determines what is "right" and "wrong", so now they are not the "mass" they are the minority. And as the minority with a lot of internet power, they are going to use it for personal gain instead of exposing change.
Believe me, all they are doing is encouraging Congress and the Pentagon to take more robust action against hackers.
This is having the opposite effect of their intentions.
They sound like Dragon Ball Z villains. That's cute.
Check out the Lulzsec Twitter feed for more. And I'd probably keep the anti-Lulzsec comments here to a minimum. I really don't want Gamasutra going offline too.
I don't think LulzSec will want a team of Force Recon Marines kicking their doors down.
These recent hack attacks are different from the previous ones in that they are very vocal, previously hackers just steal credit cards and keep it on the down low.. Now they flaunt their attacks, coincidentally this comes soon after the White House correlates hacking to terrorist actions.. hmm..
14 Jun 2011 at 12:43 pm PST
Ahh the golden age of hackers, soon hack attacks like these will push governments to put in place tracking services in place to crack down, resulting in lost of Internet freedoms for all. Too many high profile hack attacks and too many "Anonymous" hacker groups popping up at once, looks like somebody has an agenda."
Word is from Alex Jones' Infowars that the NSA is all ready tracking everything all the time all over the Internet. The NSA has the money, they have the people from MIT, they have the power. Basement nerds against the NSA? Yeah right. Not intelligent at all.
I also think you have a good point. The agenda is the world government taking over the Internet whole sale.
All these hackers think they are justified or there are purposes to their actions, but in the end, it's all meaningless.
Kidding. Well, half.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
My attempt at discussion board scarcasm has clearly failed. It was a joke (well, half -- I really don't want Gamasutra to get attacked) and it was lost in translation.
But, taking down servers "because you can" instead of just pointing out the insecurities to this selection of companies that are pretty good at responding to their communities? Seriously?
There's a difference between a "good hack" -- one that does not harm the end users in any way, shape, or form and promotes awareness -- and a "bad hack." This is just mean.
Well, according to some of the members, Lulzsec was basically a group that separated from Anon, and have been behind most of the major gaming hacks as of late. Whereas Anon stopped when it affected the customers more than anything, Lulzsec would continue regardless.
This is to my humble understanding, as these events have intrigued me since they've started.
http://beta.news.yahoo.com/hackers-hit-cia-website-231442171.html