Lizard Squad, the notorious "hacker" group behind a number of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on some of gaming's biggest networks, including Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox LIVE, has now launched a tool that allows pretty much anyone to do the same.
The new tool, appropriately called "Lizard Stresser," lets anyone sign up and pay a monthly or lifetime fee for access to the booter, which can essentially be used to take down a website or online service of their choice.
“Welcome to LizardStresser, brought to you by Lizard Squad,” the tool’s introduction page reads. “This booter is famous for taking down some of the world’s largest gaming networks such as XBOX Live, Playstation Network, Jagex, BattleNet, League of Legends and many more! With this stresser, you wield the power to launch some of the World’s largest denial of service attacks.”
There are currently eight packages available that range in effectiveness. The minimum is $5.99/month and lets you take down a site for 100 seconds. From there, the prices increase all the way up to $129.99/month which is effective in taking down a site for 30,000 seconds, or over eight hours. There are also "lifetime" options that are one-time fees ranging frmo $29.99 to $500. The site notes that lifetime packages are actually for 5 years because that's the "expected lifetime of LizardStresser." There's even a referral system in which Lizard Squad promises to give you 10 percent of whatever money your referrals spend.
For those who desire more power, there's the option to upgrade to higher-end packages. Options include concurrent "Dual Boot" for $299.99/life, 5x Concurrent "Dual Boot" for $1139.99/life, and 1Gbps Dedicated Power for $49.99/month.
The service currently only accepts the bitcoin currency, but the group says it plans to allow PayPal soon. Also, the payment system doesn't work with VPNs, so if you plan on using this service you'll have to find a different way to hide your identity and location.
Commercial tools for DDoS attacks aren't exactly a new concept really, but given Lizard Squad's track record — their numerous attacks on the gaming industry — it's scary to think that their "Twitter" fame could encourage potential clients or copycats. Lizard Squad's most recent DDoS attack came on Christmas Day when they took down PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE for a pretty lengthy period. Even now, Sony is struggling to fully restore its PSN service, though its recent problems may not be related to the attacks by Lizard Squad.
We haven't tested Lizard Stresser ourselves (for obvious reasons), but we assume it works given Lizard Squad's history — even if not with the same power they advertise. The site claims their current power (the amount of traffic requests customers can overload their targets with) stands at 2Tbps average, with a total network traffic of 30Tbps. Imagine, though, if all the attacks of late were nothing more than a simple marketing ploy for Lizard Stresser. I don't think anyone would've expected that.
