We did it for the “lulz”, said a barely-out-of-high-school hacker who was reportedly partly responsible for a world-breaking denial-of-service (DOS) attack against Microsoft and Sony Corp. during the holidays. In an interview with The Daily Dot, Vinnie Omari, a spokesperson for the group who brought down Xbox Live and Playstation Network services worldwide, lambasted both tech giants for being vulnerable to hackers, working with hangovers from their bedrooms.

The group, who call themselves Lizard Squad, was briefly placated during the attack after receiving Megaprivacy vouchers from Mega founder Kim Dotcom. It didn’t last long and soon after Kim Dotcom hailed his accomplishment as a “Christmas Miracle” the hackers continued their takedown, tweeting the semi-literate comment, “If you don’t follow @TheKingCrucifix then Xbox and PSN will never be online for the rest of Christmas.”

Oamri said during the interview that such attacks wouldn’t happen if competent staff was hired at Microsoft and Sony and was given enough bandwidth. Not mincing his words Omari said, “Microsoft and Sony are [expletive] retarded, literally monkeys behind computers…They would have better luck if they actually hired someone who knew what they were doing. Like, if they went around prisons and hired people who were convicted for stuff like this, they would have a better chance at preventing attacks.”

While Omari’s strong language was again somewhat grammatically deficient and largely, not literally, overblown, he raises serious questions, and it wouldn’t be the first time tech companies hired hackers to serve as their security. More to the point, why would the hackers, allegedly responsible for bringing down North Korea’s internet earlier this month, and removing John Smedley, Sony Online Entertainment’s President, from his flight following a bomb threat, do such a thing and render almost useless a bunch of Christmas gifts? Well, for the “lulz” they said in the interview… and also so they might sit in a high tower and call Microsoft and Sony a “bunch of *&^%$# morons.”

Following their attack on Tor, the hackers were interviewed on BBC Radio. Surprisingly, after the question was asked on the YoutTube page, do you ‘love or hate’ Lizard Squad, for their fun-spoiling, apparently egoistic acts of mass destruction, most commentators showed support for the group,  with one poster saying, “With the PSN down, I’ve had to speak to my wife. She seems nice.”

Photo credit: Colin Charlse via photopin cc