Threats from the group R.I.U. Star Patrol to bring take down PlayStation and Xbox Live on Christmas Day were just empty threats. Owners of the two gaming consoles were able to use their devices on Dec. 25 with no problems.

Besides the gaming consoles running despite the R.I.U. Star Patrol threat, there are no reports of an attack on either PlayStayion or Xbox Live, Twinfinite reports. In 2014, on Christmas Day, another group named Lizard Squad struck and attacked the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live. It was not Lizard Squad’s first attack since it successfully launched a distributed denial-of-service attack in August 2014 against PlayStation.

Learnbonds reports that R.I.U. Star Patrol was behind the DDoS attack on Tumblr on Dec. 21 at 3:25 p.m. ET, although Tumblr managed to restore full services by 5:45 p.m. ET. However, the hackers told Mashable they did not have a sinister motive in attacking Tumblr and it was “all for lighthearted fun.”

R.I.U. Star Patrol also caused a shutdown of “Warframe” and “League of Legends” servers last week. After that, they threatened to do the same to Xbox and PlayStation on Dec. 25 through a tweet using the handled @ANTIPEACESP.

“Because We Can”

In an interview with 7221Max, a gaming news site, R.I.U. Star Patrol boasted they would attack PlayStation and Xbox “because we can.” They say that no one has paid them money to launch the DDoS.

One explanation why the PlayStation and Xbox DDoS attacks did not happen was that two members of R.I.U. Star Patrol were arrested on Dec. 24. However, the hackers insist the arrest is not linked to the planned Christmas Day DDoS attack.

But tweets from other members of R.I.U. Star Patrol hint of the group launching DDoS attacks when internet traffic is high and during other holidays. Meanwhile, authorities arrested in Finland a member of the Lizard Squad who was accused of 50,000 counts of cyber crimes, given a two-year jail term and ordered to help prevent cyber crime.

Posted: Dec 26, 2016 8:01 pm
Related Forum: PlayStation Forum