[caption id="attachment_187" align="alignright" width="355"] IMAGE: FLICKR, NORLANDO POBR[/caption]

Lizard Squad, the group who claimed credit for taking down Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live systems on Christmas, plans to turns its misdeeds into profits.

The group released a commercial variant of its DDoS (distributed denial of service) tool, which they say lets anyone take down networks — at a price. It was this tool that Lizard Squad says was responsible for the outages on PlayStation and Xbox Live.

Read more at:

http://mashable.com/2014/12/31/lizard-squad-ddos/

[caption id="attachment_113" align="alignright" width="300"] IMAGE: FLICKR, JOEY[/caption]

After failing on Christmas, Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live are still experiencing problems that are preventing many users from signing on to the services, just as gamers are hoping to try out their new gifts. At least one hacker group is taking credit for bringing down the services, though there's been no confirmation as to whether the problems are due to an outside attack or a simple Christmas overload.

Read more at:

http://mashable.com/2014/12/26/playstation-network-xbox-live-down/