FBI allegedly investigating member of Lizard Squad after Christmas Day DDoS
A member of now infamous Internet mayhem group, Lizard Squad, is allegedly under investigation by the FBI after speaking to the media about recent attacks against Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Sony Online Entertainment’s PlayStation Network on Christmas Day. The Lizard Squad member, who goes by the handle of “ryanc” or Ryan,
According to The Daily Dot Ryan may live in Finland, which could put him outside the reach of the FBI and is potentially a minor, at 16 or 17 years old. As a member of a now-notorious hacker group, Ryan spoke to The Daily Dot and this is thought to have attracted the attention of the FBI.
Lizard Squad is credited for multiple outages of Xbox Live and PSN on Dec 25. An event which took place after the mayhem group threatened to disrupt Christmas-time gaming. The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack lasted approximately 24 hours and disruptions lasted throughout the entirety of Christmas Day.
Kim Dotcom, of MegaUpload and Mega, attempted to placate Lizard Squad with privacy vouchers to Mega on Christmas Day worth approximately $300,000. However, it seemed to no avail, the attacks continued sporadically as Lizard Squad fanned the flames of their fame on Twitter.
Little information has been released as to the interest of the FBI in Ryan.
Living in Finland, Ryan has told The Daily Dot that he believes himself largely safe from the FBI and the United States because of his country’s laws that permit citizens to refuse extradition. However, Finnish authorities may be interested in his activities related to the Xbox Live and PSN DDoS on Christmas day.
As a member of a hacker collective Ryan says that he’s gone through great pains to keep his identity secret. Although he has spoken to the media and has appeared in on-camera interviews. “I don’t have any accurate personal information out there, and I’d like to keep it that way,” he says.
Ryan also claims to have been caught in and spent time in prison stemming from an earlier bomb threat called in to American Airlines that redirected the plane that President of Sony Online Entertainment John Smedley was aboard. This threat also occurred during a spate of DDoS attacks against Xbox Live and Blizzard Entertainment’s Battle.net gaming services.
Ryan’s comments to The Daily Dot involve a great deal of bragging about his past involvement with the FBI and other authorities. Most of these claims are juvenile stunts such as using stolen credit cards at hacker convention Defcon, which Ryan claims brought the FBI to his hotel room.
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