Finn Linked To Lizard Squad Christmas Attack

An anonymous reader writes Security researcher Mikko Hyppönen from F-Secure told the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat and Finland's MTV news that rumours have been circulating for several months about the Lizard Squad group of hackers who say they disrupted the two computer games console networks on Christmas Day. He confirmed that at least one of them is a Finn. One of the hackers, in a Skype interview from Finland by Britain's Sky News, said that the attack was carried out for amusement and to expose security flaws in the networks. Hyppönen told Helsingin Sanomat and MTV that his company has been aware of the hacker group for several months. 'According to our information, the group has members in the United States, Canada, England and at least one member in Finland,' he told MTV. The nationalities of other members that participated in the Christmas attack have not been confirmed. Hyppönen noted that these kinds of groups come and go, and that their members are usually young.

Erm

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did DDOS utilise a security flaw?

Re:

[cseg]

Denial of Service is a very valid possible form of security flaw.

Re:Erm

[Zocalo]

The two are not mutually exclusive, especially if the effect of the security flaw is compounded by multiple connections, for instance being able to use the exploit to turn a child process into a zombie and another child to be spawned until resources are exhausted. There's two security flaws there; the ability for a remote client to zombify the children and not having a cap on the maximum number of children in the config.

Might use DNS amplification

[grimJester]

Not an expert, but DDoS attacks can use security flaws and often do.

Re: Erm

[Anonymous Coward]

They did a 1.2 tb bandwidth crack that is 3x's larger than last time. They claim to control routers on some major pipelines. Those sir, are security flaws.

ORLY!

[camg188]

No mention in TFA about how they determined this guy was in the Lizard Squad except that he claims to be.
"Rumors have been circulating", but no mention about what the rumors are or if they were involved with identifying this hacker.
Hey, but if it's on Finland's MTV then it must be true. But why is my skeptical sense tingling?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Predicting what services would be taken down and when, suggest at least insider knowledge. These groups ar just script kiddies using existing exploits triggering remove DDoS attacks. Why so skeptical, it's trivial to do yourself.

Sony's recent data leaks have been knocking around for ages, they were found to have SQL injection exploits a good three months ago; although they did a good job of having the media pretend nothing was happening. These are the same elementary programming problems Sony had in 2011 wh

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

But why is my skeptical sense tingling?

A meeting of lizards and spiders is know to cause tingling senses.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite its name, MTV is not the music television that you know, but a respected TV channel and news agency.

Re:

[fintux]

The parent is not a joke and should not be modded as funny. The MTV in Finland is short for "mainostelevisio", literally "advertisement television", and is Finland's oldest commercial TV channel. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Music Television, and it actually IS a respected TV channel and news agency.

Profile of the perps:

[BarbaraHudson]

Hyppönen noted that these kinds of groups come and go, and that their members are usually young.

This is to be expected, as the perps have xbox and playstation accounts, have probably gotten a few bans for cheating, or even kicked off the networks, and have a disproportionate sense of self-entitlement.

That should help narrow it down to a few million suspects.

Re:

[Rashdot]

They could also be Finnish Thin Lizzy fans.

Re:

[quenda]

Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
Pony trekking or camping
Or just watching TV
Finland, Finland, Finland
It's the country for me

You're so near to Russia
So far from Japan
Quite a long way from Cairo
Lots of miles from Vietnam

Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
Eating breakfast or dinner
Or snack lunch in the hall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all

You're so sadly neglected
And often ignored
A poor second to Belgium
When going abroad

Finland, Finland, Finland
The country wh

Re:

[TechyImmigrant]

Levi in January is unreasonably cold in my experience.

Re:

[RevWaldo]

I just assumed they meant THE Finn.

http://williamgibson.wikia.com... [wikia.com]

.

A computer security engineer's non hackable gifts

[mallyn]

I am a computer security engineer where I work.

However, in my own personal life, I am just plain very old fashioned.

I made each family member a gortex rain jacket by hand, using a non-computerized sewing machine.

People say this is old fashioned, considering that I work with computers every day.

Well, now I can say to them that my gifts cannot be hacked or DDOS'd.

Re:

[mallyn]

No! I have been riding the MAX for 12 years. I have never been approached by any dealers of anything just because of my jacket.

you mean, their twitter accont showing "Finland"..

[GNious]

You man that their official twitter account showing "Finland" as location, was enough of a hint? :)

Well, that's vague

[wonkey_monkey]

Finn Linked To Lizard Squad Christmas Attack

Also he was a guy and is likely to have two legs.

Is it bad that my first thought was that it was the guy from Tron?

Confirmation

[Martin S.]

We still seem to be missing any independent confirmation of the Lizard Squad twitter claims. Until we do the most likely explanation is peak demand, they were slash-dotted by Christmas.

MTV News?

[phizi0n]

I know slashdot has devolved drastically but has it really gotten to the point where it needs to reference MTV News for computer security topics?

Re:

[TeknoHog]

"Respected" as in the only nation-wide commercial channel for a long time, before the digital channel explosion. The M stands for "mainos" or commercial/advert, which was distinctive at a time when most programming came from the publicly funded national broadcasting company.

There's this

[hh4m]

http://pastebin.com/gskVW3ae [pastebin.com]

Here is a dox of all the lizard squad members. Do what you like with this information.

Lizard Squad "Member" #1:
'Chief' a/k/a 'ChF' a/k/a 'ChFTheCat' a/k/a 'Devin Bharath'
Devin Bharath 1765 lawrence ave east apt 310 scarborough ON
Sara S Bharath
Home [phone]
1013 Lytton Crt
Pickering, ON L1W 3Z2
N Bharath
Home [phone]
34 Longview Dr
Bradford, ON L3Z 2H3
2901 Kipling Ave
Toro