Early last week, people attempting to play online games through XBox Live were unable to access the network due to a Denial of Service Attack apparently done by the hacking group known as Lizard Squad. The problem was remedied within a day, but Lizard Squad through a tweet has promised a much larger attack on XBox Live on Christmas. Attacking online game networks is nothing new to Lizard Squad. Earlier this year they did a similar Denial of Service Attack on the Sony PlayStation Network and have attacked networks of “League of Legends” and “Grand Theft Auto.” A Denial of Service Attack occurs when a cybercriminal floods a single system with multiple viruses causing the system to overload and crash. It is important to note that this type of attack is not actually a hacking and no personal information of the online gamers was or is compromised in a Denial of Service Attack. Individual gamers are only inconvenienced.
TIPS
Although this type of attack does not put individual customers of the company attacked in danger of losing personal information that can be used to make the customer a victim of identity theft, it is important to remember that whenever you use a particular retail website for purchases of goods or services, there is the temptation to leave your credit card on record with the company for the sake of convenience, however, this is not a good thing to do. By leaving your credit card on record, you make yourself susceptible to identity theft in the event that the company is hacked and does lose data. It is not too difficult to merely input your credit card each time you need to make a purchase and as always, never use your debit card for anything other than an ATM card.