Lizard Squad Takes Aim At Tor Project Anonymous Browsing Network

Lizard Squad, previously thought to be associated closely with the Anonymous hacking group, is now under verbal assault by the same hackers they were previously friends with.

The reptile-like group of hackers previously took down both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live gaming systems over the Christmas period ruining the fun for kids who have been given one or other of these consoles as a Christmas present but were then unable to connect to the system to play online.

Kim Dot Com of the Mega download site stepped in via Twitter to offer a bribe of free access to his Mega file sharing site to the hackers in exchange for them ceasing their denial of service attack on the gaming networks. An agreement was reached but it took an extended period of time for the gaming networks to recover and become available for gamers once again.

Now the Lizard Squad have a new target: Tor. The anonymous browsing and file sharing network with its series of nodes around the world provides a way for people to use the internet anonymously and trade information. For reasons beyond an understanding, this hacking group have developed a zero-day attack to create new nodes with the intention of disrupting the Tor service.

At the present time it is believed that the Lizard Squad have compromised over 3,000 Tor relays which help to move information around the Tor peer to peer system. The Tor Project confirmed that the attack resembles a Sybil attack where the attackers are busy creating new relays. However, they only currently comprise just 1 percent of the Tor network and the Tor Project volunteers are busy removing the new relays just as fast as they are being created. No current threat to the Tor network is expected despite the online attack continuing from the Lizard people.

Backlash With Fight Between Lizard Squad, Finest Squad and Anonymous

Meanwhile, there is a growing backlash against the Lizard Squad. The Anonymous group of hackers have even taken a dislike to them at this point releasing new videos condoning their behavior. Some of the members of both Lizard Squad and related Finest Squad have had their personal information revealed online, a practice known as doxing.

Due to the lack of clarity over who or what actually is the Anonymous group, with people split between liking their disruptions and other people not seeing any rhyme or reason to them, this move against the Lizard Squad seems to be a little more positive. Time will tell what will result of it.