EA's Online Service Allegedly Brought Down By Hacker Group Lizard Squad

Electronic Arts Inc. is still experiencing a number of problems with its EA online service after a DDoS attack late Sunday. Lizard Squad, the group of hackers that allegedly took down Xbox Live and PlayStation Network in late August, is claiming responsibility for the disruption, and there were more than 2,000 reports of problems with the service as of Monday.

Though Lizard Squad told its Twitter followers it was disbanding in early September, the group of hackers, which aligns itself with the Islamic State, used Twitter to claim responsibility for the so-called distributed denial-of-service attack, which is an attempt to make a network resource unavailable to users.

“Any business that relies almost exclusively on the Internet as a means to drive revenue is a potential target for DDoS attacks -- the gaming industry seems to be taking the brunt of it as of late,” Ashley Stephenson, CEO of Corero Network Security, told International Business Times. “A modern, competitive organization must respond to escalating cyber threats in order to reliably conduct business via the Internet.”

The outage affected a number of games, including EA’s action role-playing game “Dragon Age: Inquisition.” Though EA didn’t address the problems directly, EA-powered digital distribution software Origin did inform users via Twitter that it was working to remedy the issue. Users who weren’t playing games online didn’t encounter problems, but those attempting multiplayer modes weren’t able to sign in to EA’s online service.

“The attacks are becoming more sophisticated, adaptive in nature and damaging,” Stephenson added, advising companies to take various precautions. “Invest in proactive technical defenses against DDoS attacks and cyber threats. Ensure that the ... preparation and response plans are developed and put in place.”

Lizard Squad still hasn’t been apprehended by authorities. The group tweeted that it’s “cooking up something nice for later” on Sunday evening.