TORONTO – UK authorities have arrested an 18-year-old man for swatting and denial of service offences in the Christmas Day cyber-attack that took both Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox networks offline for days.
According to authorities, the teen was arrested in Southport, England on suspicions of unauthorised access to computer material and providing false information to authorities – known as swatting in the U.S.
Police seized a number of electronic and digital devices from the suspect’s home.
Both gaming networks were knocked offline, allegedly by a Distributed Denial of Service attack, just as eager gamers were unwrapping new consoles and games on Christmas morning.
READ MORE: Who is ‘Lizard Squad’ and why do they hack gaming networks?
Hacker group Lizard Squad – who has attacked both PlayStation and Xbox on numerous occasions – has taken responsibility for both attacks.
UK law enforcement agencies had been working with the FBI to investigate the cyber-attacks.
“We are still at the early stages of the investigation and there is still much work to be done,” said Craig Jones, head of the Cyber Crime Unit at the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit. “We will continue to work closely with the FBI to identify those to who commit offences and hold them to account.
“Cybercrime is an issue which has no boundaries and affects people on a local, regional and global level.”
READ MORE: Sony offers discounts to gamers after Christmas PlayStation hack
Following the attacks, Sony offered gamers a five-day extension on PlayStation Plus memberships to apologize for the service outage.
The company said it also plans to offer gamers a one-time 10 per cent discount towards a PlayStation Store purchase “sometime this month.”
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