After causing months of terror for the online gaming communities in the Xbox and PlayStation camps, one of the hackers allegedly involved with the Christmas DDoS attack on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network has been apprehended by British law enforcement.
According to an article on Reuters, an arrest was made in Merseyside, England, where the suspect was detained with the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A statement from the Merseyside police department was issued regarding the arrest, stating...
"Officers ... have arrested a man in Southport, Merseyside this morning as part of an investigation into ‘swatting’ and computer hacking offences,"
Reuters notes that there is no further information provided on the arrest. Quite naturally a lot of people have questioned whether or not this is actually in relation to the attacks that occurred during the Christmas week where the PSN and Xbox Live services went down due to DDoS attacks.
Given the lack of information from law enforcement and the vague statement from the Merseyside police, it's kind of a toss-up if this is actually a kid related to the group responsible for the attacks.
Listing crimes such as “computer hacking offenses” is broad indeterminate. What if this guy was responsible for something completely unrelated? How do we know this actually has to do with the cyber-attacks over Christmas break?
As for the allegation of “swatting”... it's the act of falsifying information and having armed police forces arrive at someone's home in order to “scare” the individual. This is extremely dangerous and could result in someone being seriously injured or potentially killed, given that SWAT has no idea what they're stepping into and most people have no idea that SWAT has been called. “Swatting” has been used by some people to pull a prank against rivals, etc. It's a very dangerous prank.
If the individual arrested on the charges that are claimed in the report, then that's at least one less individual to worry about attempting to DDoS or “swat” individuals.
The attacks against the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live have been happening frequently since last summer in 2014. Gamers have had to deal with services being taken offline due to the DDoS attacks, causing a lot of frustration for gamers and a lot of lost money for both Sony and Microsoft, since the digital stores were also pulled offline.
The U.S., Government has recently been attempting to resurface CISPA, also known as bill H.R., 624. The has already passed the house committee and is an attempt to get a digital law enforcement better equipped to handle cyber-terrorist attacks. The new CISPA has various amendments added that removes the Federal Government's right to the invasion of privacy of U.S., citizens, but also extends the language to enforce inter-agency support for better data and information sharing. You can learn more about the bill by paying a visit the official website for Congress.
As for the suspect arrested in relation to the Xbox Live and PSN attacks... hopefully this will be the start of a new campaign to lessen the presence of online cyber-terrorists.
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