If you’ve used an Xbox console during the past few hours, chances are you’ve had issues connecting to Xbox Live. There’s a good reason for that: it’s under attack. Xbox Live has been hit by a DDoS storm that has crippled the network, impacting the end-user experience and causing headaches for Xbox Live network technicians.
As was the case for several network outages throughout 2014, Lizard Squad has taken the credit, stating on Twitter:
Xbox Live #offline
Using DDoS maps such as Digital Attack Map, you can see a storm of packets flooding from proxies in China and other countries. This is very similar to the attack in August that left PSN, Battle.net, and EA Origin in rough shape, although this time it appears to be focused on Xbox Live.
This DDoS has resulted in many users being unable to connect to the service, making online play next to impossible, in addition to impacting update and game downloads. It is undoubtedly causing frustration for some of the hundreds of thousands of shoppers who invested in the Xbox One during Black Friday/Cyber Monday, making it a hot ticket item for Microsoft to deal with.
Also See: $329 Xbox One Dominates Black Friday
Microsoft hasn’t commented on the issue. We’ll update the article as more information becomes available.
