It has not been a good January for Lizard Squad, the now infamous hacking group, as their DDoS for hire website has been hacked and its customer database compromised. Adding salt to the wound, a UK based member of the team has been arrested.
Lizard Squad made a name for itself by causing a massive disruption of PlayStation Network and Xbox Live services over the Christmas period. It then proceeded to extort internet mogul Kim Dotcom for premium subscription vouchers to his Mega file storage service. The hacking group was also involved in several other high profile hacking cases and at least one incident of calling in a fake bomb threat against a Sony executive’s flight.
Recently, Lizard Squad had also announced a DDoS for hire service. Security blog Krebsonsecurity broke the news about that very service being compromised and a database of its clients released to the internet. Lizard Squad had apparently stored the database in a plaintext document, without encryption. The cache shows some 11,000 Bitcoins were paid to the hacker group to launch attacks on thousands of websites. With this breach information, it is safe to say that law enforcement agencies will have no problem tracking down Lizard Squad’s clients.
Speaking of tracking people down, an alleged Lizard Squad member from Southport UK has been arrested in a joint operation between UK authorities and the FBI. News reports do not name the 18-year old youth, although some sources identify him as Jordan Cameron, who goes by the online aliases “Jordie”, “EvilJordie”, and “GDKJordie”. Cameron has also been charged with being involved in a series of swatting incidents.
After this last weekend, it appears that Lizard Squad is facing its last days. Even if the remaining members manage to stay anonymous, it is likely that they would lie low for a while to avoid detection. On the other hand, Lizard Squad is known for drawing too much attention to itself over Twitter.
[Source: Ars Technica 1, 2; Krebsonsecurity]
