It is the morning of Christmas in 2014, a day on which, in many areas of the world, kids and adults alike awake to cheerful Christmas music and gift-wrapped presents underneath the Christmas tree. Smiling from ear to ear, many eagerly unwrap the gift of a new game console such as a Microsoft Xbox or Sony PlayStation. Others jump for joy for the latest and hottest release of online games. As they rush to fire up the new console or game, they wait patiently for the game to register online and start. They wait and wait, only to be greeted with a “Service Unavailable” error.
Upon further research, news that the gaming sites are under a Distributed Denial of Service attack, or DDoS, starts to surface. The companies’ social media outlets, shown in Figure 1-1 with over 1,000 retweets, begin to fill with angry comments from frustrated users. Rumors on the web start to swirl around as to who were the malicious actors, what their motivations were, and when the service will be restored.
It was later confirmed that the service disruption was due to a group of malicious actors called Lizard Squad launching the DDoS attack on the gaming companies. The gaming services were interrupted on one of the biggest holidays of the year and a large sum of revenue was lost. More importantly, the reputation of the companies was severely damaged and consumer confidence in the service took a punishing hit that took the companies years to regain.
Figure 1-1. Sony PlayStation ...
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