Gamers who wanted to test new consoles and games on Christmas received an unwanted present from Lizard Squad, a group notorious for its distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

The group successfully sent out DDoS attacks to Xbox Live and PlayStation Network crashing the servers and leaving gamers unable to connect to its online services throughout all of Christmas day. Reports Friday morning claim Xbox Live should be up and running, but PSN is still experiencing server issues.

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Although the Christmas present from Lizard Squad was unwanted by gamers, the DDoS attack wasn't unexpected. The cyber attack group has been boasting on Twitter about its attacks to gaming companies multiple times this month, and vowed that it would deliver a massive attack on Christmas.

A group of hackers by the name of Finest Squad who recently leaked information to the FBI leading to arrests, claimed that it could prevent any future DDoS attacks from Lizard Squad by DDoS'ing its servers and stopping the attacks at the source. However, that tactic evidently didn't work as thousands of gamers across the world reported problems throughout Christmas.

WinBeta managed to get an interview with a Lizard Squad member and sheds some light on the reason behind the attacks.

According to the group, the DDoS attacks on gaming companies started "for the laughs," but later turned into an effort to expose the network issues for Xbox and PlayStation while ultimately forcing Microsoft and Sony to upgrade its security. Lizard Squad chose Christmas for the massive attack because "it would anger and reach the largest amount of people."

The modern-day Grinch in the gaming community is presumably going to continue its distributed denial-of-service attacks on gaming companies until it's able to upgrade its security. Although not mentioned by Lizard Squad, the next attack can be expected on Dec. 29 when the "Halo 5: Guardians" Beta officially launches.

TagsLizard squad, Finest Squad, DDoS Attacks, Xbox Live, Playstation network, christmas, hacking