602 Gbps! This May Have Been the Largest DDoS Attack in History

Cyber attacks are getting evil and worst nightmare for companies day-by-day, and the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is one of the favorite weapon for hackers to temporarily suspend services of a host connected to the Internet.

Until now, nearly every big website had been a victim of this attack, and the most recent one was conducted against the BBC's websites and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's main campaign website over this past holiday weekend.

Out of two, the largest DDoS attack in the history was carried out against the BBC website: Over 600 Gbps.

Largest DDoS Attack in the History

The group calling itself New World Hacking claimed responsibility for taking down both the BBC's global website and Donald Trump's website last week.

The group targeted all BBC sites, including its iPlayer on-demand service, and took them down for at least three hours on New Year's Eve.

At the moment, the BBC news organization announced that the outage was caused due to some "technical" fault, but later it stated that "New World Hacking" group had claimed responsibility for launching a DDoS attack against BBC, as a "test of its capabilities."

BangStresser DDoS Attack Tool

One of the members of the New World Hacking group, identified himself as Ownz, claimed that the group allegedly used their own tool called BangStresser to launch a DDoS attack of up to 602 Gbps on the BBC's website.

As a proof, the group provided ZDNet a screenshot of a web interface that was allegedly used to attack the BBC website.

Although the authenticity of the screenshot has not been verified, if the attack size is proven true, it would vastly surpass the largest DDoS attack record of 334 Gbps, recorded by Arbor Networks last year.

The recent massive DDoS attack apparently utilizes two Amazon Web Services servers that employ a large number of automated detection and mitigation techniques in order to prevent the misuse of the services, Amazon previously claimed.

"We have our ways of bypassing Amazon," said Ownz. "The best way to describe it is we tap into a few administrative services that Amazon is use to using. The [sic] simply set our bandwidth limit as unlimited and program our own scripts to hide it."

More details about the attack have yet not disclosed, but Ownz claimed that their main purpose behind the development of the BangStresser DDoS tool is to unmask ISIS and possibly end its online propaganda.

"We have been taking down ISIS websites in the past," said Ownz, "this is just the start of a new year."

A similar group named Lizard Squad, conducted a marketing campaign for promoting their DDoS tool, known as the Lizard Stresser, using which the group took down Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live last year on Christmas Eve.

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Hackers Plan to Ruin Christmas Eve for Millions of PlayStation and Xbox Live Gamers

Remember the notorious hacker group Lizard Squad that spoiled last Christmas holidays of many game lovers by knocking the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live offline with apparent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks?

But, Will you be able to Play Xbox and PlayStation Game this Christmas?

Probably Not.

Because a new hacking group is threatening to carry out similar attacks by taking down the Xbox LIVE and PlayStation Network for a week during Christmas.

Be Ready this Christmas for Attacks on PSN and XBox LIVE

In a series of tweets, a bunch of DDoS hackers calling themselves "Phantom Group" (@PhantomSquad) announced that they will disrupt the XBox Live and PlayStation networks in a coordinated DoS attack.

The attacks could prevent millions of gamers worldwide from enjoying their newly opened Christmas gifts and accessing games online.

Here are the tweets by Phantom Squad:

We are going to shut down Xbox live and PSN this year on Christmas. And we are going to keep them down for one-week straight #DramaAlert 

Ok, think about this.... Xbox Live and PSN have millions upon millions of dollars... but do they use that money for better security? 

No. PSN and Xbox do not use that money to improve their security... So until they open their eyes, Xbox Live and PSN will remain vulnerable.

Take Phantom Squad's Threats More Seriously

A few days ago, Phantom Squad claimed responsibility for knocking Reddit offline, and Reddit confirms that the issue, saying its databases coming "under extreme load" that could have been caused by a DDoS attack.

"Reddit #Offline Goodnight." — Phantom Squad tweeted on December 15, 2015.

Now, the group has turned its crosshairs toward the gaming networks.

However, neither Microsoft nor Sony responsible for managing PlayStation and XBox Live online networks respectively has confirmed the DDoS attacks, but Microsoft, at least, acknowledged issues with Xbox LIVE when Phantom Squad claimed responsibility.

"Xbox Live #Offline" — Phantom Squad tweeted on December 12, 2015.

As a proof, Phantom Squad also posted a video of its cyber attacks.

If the DDoS attack on PSN and XBox is carried out successfully for a week during Christmas, it will again ruin the Christmas holidays for millions of video game lovers worldwide, just like last year.

Since DDoS attacks are so easy to conduct nowadays when there are so many DDoS tools available online, the important point here is whether Microsoft and Sony have upgraded their DDoS defences enough to defend against the attacks.

So, What do you think about the declarations of war upon PSN and Xbox LIVE? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

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